Zigzagzigal's Guide to Venice (BNW)

No other Civ plays like Venice. With only one city capable of building as you choose, everything rests on your capital. Aiding you in your endeavour is quite possibly the game's strongest economy. This guide goes into plenty of detail about Venetian strategies, uniques and how to play against them.

Introduction

Note: This guide assumes you have all game-altering DLC and expansion packs (all Civ packs, Wonders of the Ancient World, Gods & Kings and Brave New World)



History does not only consist of vast empires and conquerers, but also of peoples who sought a different route, through careful diplomacy and trade for power outweighing their size. One of the greatest nations of all time in this regard was the Republic of Venice. Founded as the Western Roman empire fell, the land technically fell within the Eastern Roman empire, but isolation from the rest drove it to an increasingly autonomonous area, and starting in the 9th century, become a true City-State. From there, trade increased and by the 12th century, the republic was powerful enough to seize lands across the Mediterranean. The Fourth Crusade in 1204 brought back great wealth, as would the German printing presses of the late 15th century.

But the discovery of the New World, and growing Ottoman power would dent Venice's power, as would plagues in the 16th and 17th centuries. Venice would forever lose its independence in 1797, passing to Napoleon's and then Austria's hands, followed by annexation into the new Italian state over 50 years later. But the real threat to Venice comes not in losing its independence, but in how it catches the imagination of the outside world. The demand for Venetian housing is pushing up prices and has driven thousands out the city. The islands themselves are sinking, with increasingly elaborate (and expensive) solutions. So is it time for another chance, to face this brave new world, building a city which can stand the test of time?



Before I go into depth with this guide, here's an explanation of some terminology I'll be using throughout for the sake of newer players.

Beelining - Focusing on obtaining a technology early by only researching technologies needed to research it and no others. For example, to beeline Bronze Working, you'd research Mining and Bronze Working and nothing else until Bronze Working was finished.
Finisher - The bonus for completing a Social Policy tree (e.g. Free Great Person for Liberty.)
GWAM - Great Writers, Artists and Musicians. These are the three types of Great People who can make Great Works, a major source of tourism for cultural Civs.
MoV - Short for Merchant of Venice, Venice's Unique Great Person.
Opener - The bonus for unlocking a Social Policy tree (e.g. +1 culture for every city for Liberty's opener)
Tall Empire - A low number of cities with a high population each. It's compulsory to have your capital at least to be very strong (and hence high-population) as it's the only city in which you can choose what to build in.
UA - Unique Ability - The unique thing a Civilization has which doesn't need to be built.
UGP - Unique Great Person - A replacement for a normal Great Person which can only be generated by one Civilization or provided by allied City-States through completing the Patronage Social Policy tree. There are only two of these in the game - the Mongolian Khan and Venetian Merchant of Venice.
UU - Unique Unit - A replacement for a normal unit that can only be built by one Civilization or provided by Militaristic City-States when allied (this only applies to land UUs that are of Civs not in your current game.)
Uniques - Collective name for Unique Abilities, Units, Buildings, Improvements and Great People
Wide Empire - A high number of cities with a low population each. You can't really do this as Venice due to the importance of your capital.
Wonder - "Wonder" on its own typically refers to World Wonders (can only be built once) as opposed to National Wonders (can only be built once by each Civ.)

At a glance (Part 1/2)

Start Bias

Venice has an extra-special start bias. It's a coastal start bias but importantly Venice's starting position is placed before other Civs, meaning they're more likely to start by the coast than any other Civ (this isn't a certainty though!) This is important for building your Great Galleass UU, but also gives you a shot at the Colossus wonder (which gives 2 Trade Routes to Venice rather than the usual 1) and crucially lets you run sea Trade Routes from your capital, which are more profitable than land ones.

Uniques

Aside from the extra-special start bias, Venice has a rather unusual UA which radically alters its gameplay. They're also one of only two Civs in the game to have a Unique Great Person with the Merchant of Venice. And in the Medieval era, they have a naval UU; something relatively uncommon.

Unique Ability: Serenissima

• Can never acquire Settlers by any means (except for the starting Settler to found your capital with)
  
• Can never annex cities (all captured cities must be either puppeted or razed)
  
• Free Merchant of Venice (Venice's Great Merchant replacement) when researching Optics
  
• Taking the Collective Rule policy in the Liberty tree grants a Merchant of Venice instead of a Settler
  
• Can purchase units and buildings (including faith purchases and spaceship parts with the Space Procurements tenet in the Freedom tree) in puppeted cities
  
• Trade Route limit doubled

Unique Unit: Great Galleass (Replaces the Galleass)

A naval ranged unit

Technology	Obsoletion	Upgrades from	Upgrades to	Production cost	Purchase cost	Resource needed
Compass Medieval era 2nd column (7th column overall)	Navigation Renaissance era 2nd column (9th column overall)	None	Frigate (160 )*	110 *	430 *	None

*Assumes a normal speed game.

Strength	Ranged Strength	Moves	Range	Sight	Negative Attributes	Positive Attributes
18	20	3	2	2	May not melee attack Cannot enter ocean tiles	None

Negative changes

• Costs 110 production, up from 100 (+10%)
  
• Costs 430 gold, up from 400 (+7.5%)

Positive one-off changes

• 18 strength, up from 16 (+12.5%)
  
• 20 ranged strength, up from 17 (+18%)
  
• Upgrade cost of 160 rather than 180 in normal speed games (-11%)

Unique Great Person: Merchant of Venice (Replaces the Great Merchant)

Main generation method	Shares threshold with*	Moves	Sight	Passive Abilities	Active Abilities
Great Person Points	Great Engineer Great Scientist	2	1	+2 while embarked	Can expend in friendly territory to create a Customs House (Base yield: +4 gold to tile) Can expend in City-State territory to conduct a Trade Mission for gold (more based on era) and 60 influence Can expend in City-State territory to turn it into a puppet in your control.

*When you generate one of these Great People, it'll raise the cost of these Great People as well as itself.

Positive passive changes

• +2 moves while embarked

Positive active changes

• Double gold and influence from Trade Missions
  
• Can expend in City-State territory to turn it into a puppet in your control. Does not require an alliance or even friendship. The city can never be turned back into a City-State.
  
  • If the City-State owns multiple cities, they will all be taken as puppets under your control at once.

At a glance (Part 2/2)

Victory Routes

Note these scores are a matter of personal opinion based on experiences with the Civilization. You may discover a way of utilising the Civ more effectively in unconventional ways.

Cultural: 4/10
Diplomatic: 10/10
Domination: 7/10
Scientific: 3/10

These scores may seem a little odd at first glance, but let me explain.

Cultural: Cultural victories rely on tourism, a great deal of which either comes from wonders or Great Works housed in wonders. As only your capital can build them, you have problems. And that's not all - you can't buy Archaeologists, so your capital will have to build them all, too.

Diplomatic: Merchants of Venice removing City-States may seem detrimental to diplomatic victory plans, but remember you can puppet cities allied to rivals to ruin their chances and narrowing down the number of City-States makes alliances easier to maintain - especially with the Treaty Organisation tenet from the Freedom ideology. Nonetheless, keep City-State puppeting to a minimum as you'll have lots of gold from your UA for City-State alliances, and Merchants of Venice get double Trade Mission effectiveness.

Domination: While you can't train units in puppets, you can buy them using your a strong economy to help. The Great Galleass is the dominant naval unit for its era and can be used to help batter down coastal cities. Keep in mind however you have to be incredibly careful the war doesn't go wrong and your capital gets invaded. Puppeting cities is also good for managing happiness, and being able to get more out of puppeted cities helps a lot.

Scientific: Masses of gold may appear to go well with Space Procurements, but Venice will tend to fall behind in the space race as puppets generate 25% less science than normal cities and still add 5% to the cost of technologies.

Similar Civs and uniques

Overall

If you like high gold outputs but don't like the City-State-empire mechanics of Venice, look to Portugal. They've got strong bonuses to international trading and favour a maritime empire, just like Venice.

Other naval diplomatic Civs include Carthage, Indonesia and the Netherlands - all of which have decent war-time advantages as well.

Same start bias

Venice's start bias is unique in that they're placed before all other Civs. No other Civ has that ability, although the coastal start bias itself is the most common in the game. Venice shares it with Byzantium, Carthage, Denmark, England, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, the Ottomans, Polynesia, Portugal and Spain.

Similar to the UA

No other Civ gets the ability to build Settlers removed, and no others can purchase in puppeted cities. For that matter, none get a doubled trade route limit, but at least other uniques exist that interact with trade routes; Morocco gets gold and a little culture for every different Civ trading with them while Portugal gets a doubled diversity bonus from trade routes giving them more gold that way.

Similar to Great Galleasses

The role of a pre-Astronomy defensive naval unit is also filled by Byzantium's Dromon. Dromons come much earlier than Great Galleasses, are more mobile, cost about half as much and are only 25% weaker against naval units assuming no promotions.

The only unique naval ranged unit other than those two is England's Ship of the Line. Ships of the Line, like Great Galleasses, have more strength making them dominant in their respective eras. But because Ships of the Line can travel over ocean tiles, they're much more capable against cities making them more of an offensive unit than a defensive one.

Similar to Merchants of Venice

The only other Unique Great Person is Mongolia's Khan, but they could barely be more different. Instead, let's look at the iconic feature of Merchants of Venice; the ability to peacefully annex City-States. Austria is the only other Civ in the game that can do that, but to very different ends. Venice should keep annexations to a minimum to maximise their chances at diplomatic victory, while Austria is very effective at diplomatic victories and hence has no such issue.

Unique Ability: Serenissima

Above: Double the trade routes. And the only regular city I'll ever have.

The City-State Civ

When you're playing as Venice, having a weak capital is having a weak Civ, even more so than France or Rome. Here's the challenges you face with only one non-puppet city:

• Only your capital can build as you choose.
  
• Only your capital can build wonders.
  
• Only your capital can build units (unless your puppets run out of buildings and don't have a production-to-something-else option available)
  
• Every city you own raises technology costs by 5% and Social Policy costs by 10% each, (on standard-sized maps,) but puppets produce 25% less science and culture than regular cities.
  
• Your coastal start bias can be detrimental to production in your capital
  
• No backup city if the capital starts in a poor position

But, it does come with its advantages:

• Social Policies are super-cheap seeing as puppets don't raise the cost of them
  
• National Wonders are very easy to build, as only your capital needs to build the prerequisite buildings. In fact, you should aim to build all the National Wonders in your capital, seeing as they can't go anywhere else.
  
• Your coastal start bias is brilliant for overseas trade
  
• Fewer decisions to make

At the start of the game, get Worker techs and Writing like most other Civs, along with Optics for the free Merchant of Venice. If you think you can manage to build the Colossus, then get Iron Working afterwards as well. Beyond that point, you can push towards Compass and then Education, though there's no need to beeline them.

It's important to grow your capital strong, so use the Tradition Social Policy tree. It'll provide you plenty of growth, leaving you more free to focus on providing the capital with good production. There's a lot that city will need to build, so make it the strongest city you can. If another Civ starts settling near you, buy tiles to ensure you can use the maximum amount of space possible. Every workable tile matters for your capital.

As the game goes into the Classical and Medieval eras, that's when many warmongers begin to strike and Venice is particularly prone at that point; your Merchant of Venice generation hasn't really taken off yet meaning you have very few cities. Luckily, that's when some International Trade Routes come into play. Trading with another Civ makes them less inclined to declare war on you, and will give you the cash needed to buy yourself an army or defences if need be.

Deeper into the game, one noticable advantage Venice has emerges: building National Wonders is incredibly easy. This becomes most useful for the National Intelligence Agency - usually one of the hardest National Wonders to build, but one of the most rewarding due to the extra Spy it grants. That can be used to rig elections or as a diplomat for the extra delegates from the Globalisation technology, so it's a great help towards diplomatic victory.

Double Trade Routes

This is the most powerful part of Venice's UA, and hence worth looking into at this point. Every occasion where other Civs would increase their maximum International Trade Route limit by 1, Venice has it increased by 2. This means every technology granting a route gives two, and both the Colossus and Petra wonders also offer 2 Trade Routes rather than 1.

The obvious benefit is that you can raise an awful lot of money, and that can be used towards a diplomatic victory. Backing this up further is the Treaty Organisation tenet in the Freedom ideology, which provides influence in City-States you have Trade Routes in - double the Trade Routes means double the effectiveness to an already powerful tenet for a diplomatic win.

Because of your coastal start bias and the fact most City-States are on the coast, you should be primarily using Cargo Ships to maximise gold intake.

Besides that advantage, you can also gain more science from other Civs with a technological advantage, partially making up for the fact your puppet cities aren't great in that regard. Having plenty of gold means you can afford near-constant research agreements later in the game, on top of City-State alliances.

And there's another crucial point: Civs who you have International Trade Routes with are less likely to attack you. The dispersed nature of City-States means after puppeting a few you can trade with pretty much every Civ and have a few routes spare. Until you get Treaty Organisation, trading with a wide range of Civs ain't a bad idea. If someone does go to war with you and start pillaging your trade routes, that'll make other Civs angry they cut off some of their gold.

Purchasing in Puppets

Above: You still can't buy tiles. Best thing you can do to expand borders is buy a culture building for the city.

This aspect of Venice's UA helps to make up for the fact your non-capital cities are all puppets. Most importantly, you can rapidly give new puppets the buildings you want right away. Here's the best options for early building purchasing:

• Monument - Allows the puppet to expand its borders, and doesn't cost much to buy. Keep in mind that puppet culture is reduced compared to normal cities, meaning it'll expand its borders more slowly than normal cities.
  
• Lighthouse - If the city has coastal resources nearby, a Lighthouse'll get it growing faster and make it more productive.
  
• Library - A good choice to deal with puppet cities' reduced science.
  
• Harbour - Lower priority usually than others on this list, but goes well with Exploration tree policies and international trading. Also is usually necessary for forming city connections.

Early in the game, buying faith buildings instead isn't a bad idea if you're yet to found a religion. And getting a religion is very useful as you can faith-purchase in your puppets! That includes Great People after the Industrial era, which is handy for spawning Merchants of Venice closer to City-States.


Above: I'm showing the option to buy a Great Engineer as an example, though typically those should go to your capital seeing as you have no control over puppet production, making Manufactories weak, and puppets can't build wonders to rush

Now, besides being able to set up quickly and getting as good a religion as any other Civ, purchasing in puppets allows you to build up an army in them - usually puppets don't build units unless everything else has been built (and with Education or Guilds, they will never build units.) That's good if you want to take this serene republic to war, or to defend your puppets from a hostile threat. Landsknechte (from the Mercenary Army Social Policy in the Commerce tree) work particularly well in this arrangement, being cheap to buy and able to move immediately after purchase.

Unique Great Person: Merchant of Venice

Merchants of Venice are essentially your Settlers, and your main way of gaining new cities. When you enter City-State territory with a Merchant of Venice, regardless of your standing with the City-State, you can puppet the city, gaining control of all its units in the process.

The Early Game

Work towards the Optics technology early on in order to get the free Merchant of Venice your UA offers you, as getting Great People in the early-game is usually difficult. For your first City-State purchase, it's best not to buy a city too far away from your capital so those two cities can back each other up if threatened by war. Favour coastal City-States for trading reasons, as well as the lack of need to build a long road to link the city up. Also, take into account the type of City-State:

• Cultural - Because you have low Social Policy costs, it's best not to puppet these.
  
• Maritime - Avoid puppeting these (unless as a last resort) as they can really help your capital out through food bonuses.
  
• Mercantile - Happiness can be a little useful early-on, but the limited expansion Venice has means happiness isn't too much of a problem. As such, taking it out the game tends to hurt rivals more than it can hurt you. Remember, when you acquire the City-State you don't get its special luxury resource.
  
• Militaristic - If you're aiming for a diplomatic victory, militaristic City-States don't offer you that much (and enemies can use it against you) so they make fine puppets.
  
• Religious - Handy for getting a religion going. Keep them alive.

Obviously, a Mercantile City-State in snow lacking resources doesn't make a good puppet, so look at the area, too.


Above: That Merchant of Venice is in the process of buying Genoa, a Mercantile City-State with decent resources on the coast, close to my capital and far away from warmongers (on the minimap, on the left-hand side, there's two City-States right next to Mongolia which would be fairly poor choices.)

In summary, take account of:

• Distance from capital
  
• Proximity to aggressive Civs
  
• Whether or not the city's coastal
  
• The City-State type
  
• Local terrain and resources

Onwards

The mistake to make as Venice is to puppet lots of City-States (unless you couldn't care less about a diplomatic victory.) Instead, after your first puppet, pick a small number of dispersed cities further away from your capital to make good trading bases.


Above: Merchants of Venice move two tiles faster when embarked than other units, helping you to more quickly reach those coastal City-States.

You can get by perfectly well on 6 cities or less - any more and the increased science costs per city coupled with reduced puppet science puts you at quite a disadvantage.

Beyond Puppets

So, what do you do with Merchants of Venice, now that you've got your trading bases? Use them as super-Great Merchants. Their Trade Missions are double the effectiveness of regular Great Merchants, meaning double the gold and double the influence.


Above: I've got Entrepreneurship from the Commerce Social Policy tree as well, (which also doubles Trade Mission gold in addition to the MoV bonus,) meaning an awful lot of money.

No matter which point in the game, Merchants of Venice always create 60 influence in the City-State you perform a Trade Mission in, and with the money gained, you can ensure that alliance lasts. This is powerful for winning over City-States prior to World Congress votes. Stockpiling Merchants of Venice in the late-game and planting them in City-States ready to be used similtaniously just before such a vote makes it very hard to overturn.

Unconventional tricks

Aside from the standard puppet a few City-States, ally the rest of Venice's game, there's a few little tricks you can pull off I felt were worth mentioning here. All of these aren't great if you're playing diplomatically, but are decent if you feel like warmongering.

Austria Bane

Simple and straightforward, puppet cities as soon as they're allied to Austria so they can't buy them out with their UA.

Repuppet

A trick for a warmongering Venice. If an enemy's captured a City-State, liberate it and immediately puppet it with a Merchant of Venice. Not only does this cut out turns of resistance you'd normally have for directly puppeting the city, but it also lessens NPC Civs' view of you as a warmonger.

Votecrusher

Rather than mass-allying City-States, this unconventional tactic is to mass-purchase those firmly allied to rivals in order to greatly weaken their World Congress votes in a way that can't be overturned.

Unique Unit: Great Galleass

After your greatly unconventional other uniques, the Great Galleass seems somewhat mundane in comparison, but it does have an important use: defending your coastal Trade Routes. Until Navigation, it's the strongest ship in the seas (unless Korea's in your game.)

Get several and position them to keep coasts revealed (so Barbarians can't spawn there) as well as the sea along your Trade Routes (so Barbarians can't sneak in and pillage there.) High strength and a ranged attack means that if any Barbarians do come, you can make mincemeat of them before they have a chance to get many hits in.


Above: They make great escorts, as their defensive strength is higher than the ranged strength of regular Galleasses (unlike land-based ranged units, naval ranged units always use melee strength to defend.)
Below: Being ranged units, they're also good at attacking units on the land. They've got a higher ranged strength than Crossbowmen, and all three Bombardment promotions gives essentially a strength of 40 against land units.


In defence from other Civs, Great Galleasses are limited by the fact they can't fight inland, so you can't rely on them alone to protect your cities. And despite having a naval UU dominant for its time, this point of the game is still when Venice is vulnerable to attack - too early in the game to dominate the world economy, but not early enough that pretty much everyone has the same number of cities as you.

Special promotions kept on upgrade

None. Use them while you can!

Social Policies: Tradition, Patronage and Commerce

Due to the all-puppets-except-the-capital nature of Venice, Social Policies come cheap. And that's very useful as there's a lot of policies to chew through. Tradition, Patronage, Commerce, Exploration and Rationalism all have good stuff; your exact choice of policies varies depending on your situation in the game. You should always take Tradition and Patronage.

Tradition

The more City-States you puppet, the easier it is for rival Civs to swing all the City-States their way and dominate the World Congress, so it's best to build tall.

Opener

Faster border expansion is very useful as you can't buy tiles in puppeted cities. And the Hanging Gardens is a great wonder for your capital if you can get it, as fast growth means more production for more wonders.

Oligarchy

The main reason for taking this for further policies, but it's still helpful in its own right to aid in fending off early attacks - something Venice is particularly vulnerable to.

Legalism

This helps to get the first three puppets expanding their borders right away.

Landed Elite

Again, a faster-growing capital will mean it can exploit production tiles sooner, and squeeze in more wonders (or fill those important Merchant slots)

Monarchy

Offers quite good gold for the early game, and essentially halves capital unhappiness from population making it easy to grow it even higher.

Aristocracy

Get this earlier if there's a good Wonder you want to pick up. Otherwise, getting Landed Elite and Monarchy first will help strengthen your capital sooner.

Finisher

Even more growth makes for an even stronger capital. And being able to faith-purchase Great Engineers is no small matter, as it allows you to rush late-game wonders without your Capital having to spend precious production on them.

Patronage

Opener

It's easy to keep City-State alliances when you're as rich as Venice, but by slowing down the rate of influence decay, you can free up more cash for other uses.

Consulates

Consulates even affects the resting point of City-States you haven't met yet, giving you a head start on working towards alliances.

Philanthropy

Now you can stretch your money further and maintain even more City-State alliances.

Scholasticism

A vital source of science to an otherwise science-starved nation. Beyond this point in the Patronage tree, policies are a little less useful and hence it's worth switching to Commerce. I'll cover them anyway.

Cultural Diplomacy

A source of happiness if you're running low, though happiness doesn't tend to be a problem for Venice the same way it is for many other Civs.

Merchant Confederacy

Good with the Treaty Organisation Freedom tenet to make those high-influence trade routes more profitable.

Finisher

You can't choose which Great People you get, and it's quite possible to end up with regular Great Merchants (you can just use them to make Custom Houses.)

Commerce

Opener

You'll probably make most of your non-Trade Route gold in your capital, so a 25% bonus comes in handy.

Wagon Trains

You'll get very little out this policy as you should be focusing on sea trade routes and Harbour construction first. It leads into Entrepreneurship, however - a policy which is far more effective for Venice than it is for any other Civ.

Entrepreneurship

Your UGP now makes even more cash from trade missions, and you can generate them faster. If you want to maximise gold output, switch to Exploration at this point - you can pick up the rest of Commerce later if you have the spare policies.

Mercenary Army

If you're under threat by warmongering Civs, get this as soon as you can (and before Entrepreneurship) - Landsknetches are very cheap to buy and are the only unit capable of moving after purchase. Their strength of 16 may be fairly low for the era, but they make a decent quick-fix defensive solution.

Mercantilism

Cheaper purchasing is powerful for a Civ which relies so heavily on it. It makes both units and buildings cheaper to buy, which like Mercenary Army, helps with repelling invaders. Additionally, you get a little science bonus from gold buildings; it doesn't make a huge difference but it helps.

Protectionism

Because of the 25% penalty for puppet culture and the lack of being able to purchase tiles in them, puppets are slow to expand to the best food tiles and as such will grow more slowly than your capital, limiting the amount of unhappiness they create. However, that's not to say that Venice is completely immune to the unhappiness woes common in the mid-game, and Protectionism will pretty much eliminate that.

Finisher

More gold for trading posts isn't the most useful bonus around seeing as you'll be using your Merchants of Venice either for purchasing cities or trade missions. The real bonus here is the ability to faith-purchase Merchants of Venice. By the late-game, your puppets will have probably built all the faith buildings regardless of whether you have a religion or not, and it's nice to have somewhere useful to pour that faith.

Social Policies: Exploration and Rationalism

Usually, you can reliably get through around three Social policy trees before ideologies come along, and another one between getting a level three ideological tenet and the end of the game. As such, you probably won't be able to complete all the policies I list, so choose carefully.

Typically, up to this point you should've completed Tradition and got some policies out of Patronage and Commerce. Now, your aim is to pull some science bonuses out the Rationalism tree so you don't fall behind, and attempt to get Treasure Fleets out of the Exploration tree if possible for the massive bonus to gold. If you do manage to complete everything, then you could always go for the free Merchant of Venice out of the Collective Rule policy in the Liberty tree.

Exploration

Opener

Protecting sea Trade Routes remains important throughout the game, and a bonus to naval sight as well as movement means you can more efficently scan the seas for Barbarians.


Above: Using the strategic view is a good way to clearly see which tiles you have revealed and where Trade Routes are going (be sure to enable the option to see them.) With one exception near Venice (I'd soon address that,) all the coastal land tiles in this screenshot are in view of either my units or that of other Civs, making them safe from Barbarian spawning.

Maritime Infrastructure

This should affect nearly all, if not all your cities, providing a helpful boost to production. A production bonus is never bad.

Naval Tradition

As stated for Protectionism, Venice isn't immune from the mid-game happiness problems, so getting a bit more is still useful.

Merchant Navy

Hacks back at the maintenance cost for coastal buildings, giving you a little cash back in the process. The culture and production bonus for the East India Company is particularly welcome as it's very easy for you to build it, and it'll make your capital stronger.

Treasure Fleets

This is the reason for going into Exploration - by the end of the game, it can grant you as much as 64 gold per turn (even more with Petra or the Colossus.) You can hold City-State alliances, buy buildings you need, run research agreements, keep units upgraded and still have cash left over for persuading other Civs to do what you want.

Don't bother with Navigation school unless you feel like Venetian warmongering - the finisher is also of no great help to you.

Rationalism

Opener

Despite all the research agreements you may have, Venice is still prone to falling behind in science, hence making Rationalism a good choice. Even if you can't complete the tree before ideologies come along, the policies still come in handy even in the end-game. This opener's 10% science bonus generally means 1-2 less turns taken per technology.

Secularism

With your capital having a monopoly of the National Wonders, the World Wonders you've built and probably being the largest city you have, there's no shortage of specialists meaning plenty of science.

Sovereignty

Squeezes a little cash out of science buildings to throw on the huge pile of cash you already have.

Scientific Revolution

Take advantage of all that gold with research agreements, helping to further close the technology gap.

Humanism

The main point of taking Humanism is for the powerful Free Thought policy, though more Great Scientists means you can rush through the line of technologies leading to Globalisation (and its delegate bonus for every Diplomat you have)

Free Thought

You should have a University in every city by this point, making this policy even more effective than the already-good opener. Puppets don't have penalties to gold generation, meaning building lots of trading posts around them can work effectively; now they grant science, too.

Finisher

The free technology can significantly cut down the time needed to get to Globalisation, and if you have that already, it can help with grabbing late-game defensive technologies.

Ideology

Getting double the trade routes and trade mission yield gives you an awful lot of gold which helps out at diplomatic victories, but unless you feel like going to war, the only way you can gain new cities is by taking City-States out the game. This makes diplomatic victory a little harder, so as such Venice should be treated as a tall-building Civ. The best ideology for this playstyle is Freedom.

As is usually the case, I'm covering the best choices from the first "inverted pyramid" of tenets (three from level one, two from level two, one from level three.)

Level One Tenets - Freedom

Avant Garde

Squeezing a few more Merchants of Venice is probably not even needed at this point having so much cash. But you might as well build on that strength.

Civil Society

Your capital will probably be a huge, specialist-filled city and thanks to the Monarchy Social Policy, there's little worry about building it up even taller. The Statue of Liberty wonder, tied to Freedom, encourages you to get all the specialists you can.

Universal Healthcare

It may seem odd to take Universal Healthcare over Economic Union, a tenet offering more gold for International Trade Routes, but a significant chunk of your Trade Routes will be heading to City-States once you've got the Treaty Organisation tenet. Those routes won't be affected by the Economic Union tenet, and the remaining routes' gold value likely varies too much for the +3 gold from Freedom Civs to make any great impact.

Instead, Universal Healthcare makes a good choice because it's easy for Venice to build all the National Wonders, thus pretty much solving any happiness problems for the rest of the game.

Level Two Tenets - Freedom

Universal Suffrage

Any Great Artists you generate as Venice are best used for Golden Ages for even greater gold potential, and this tenet makes them 50% longer. Half the unhappiness from specialists makes it easier to generate Golden Ages the normal way.

New Deal

If you've used your Great Scientists and Engineers to place down Great Tile Improvements near your capital, now it's a little better.

Level Three Tenet - Freedom

Treaty Organisation

If Venice wasn't good enough at diplomatic victories already, you now have a powerful tenet made even better than your UA - International Trade Routes with City-States now create free influence. In games with a smaller number of City-States, this means you can cover them all and still have more to spare for making money with, while in games with a larger number of them, you can cover far more than any single Civ can cope with.

Religion

A strong religion is of great help to Venice as while you can't decide what your puppets build, you can choose what beliefs they can follow.

Pantheon

Be aware that while other Civs when founding new cities will spread their Pantheon to them, you don't spread your Pantheon belief to bought City-States. As such, these will only affect your capital until you've founded a full religion.

Note also that highly situational Pantheons aren't covered here. Faith Pantheons in particular are useful for reaching a religion sooner.

God of the Sea

Your coastal startbias often gives you some sea resources to start off with, and even if it doesn't, most City-States are on the coast and should take advantage of this.

Goddess of Protection

A defensive Pantheon can help you get through the troublesome classical and medieval eras where you tend to be at your most vulnerable.

Faith Healers

This works on naval units, which have to go to friendly territory anyway to heal up. So, after a fight with Barbarians, you can quickly heal up sea units and bring them back to where they were to keep the seas scouted out.

Fertility Rites

More growth means your capital gets stronger, sooner.

Religious Settlements

Your puppets can only expand their borders through culture, which this belief affects. It's not the strongest belief out there, but a perfectly viable backup option.

Founder

Tithe

Yet another source of cash. As your capital should build tall, you can guarentee at least a little cash here.

Interfaith Dialogue

A possible option for generating a little more science. It's not the strongest source of science out there, but there's no alternatives among the Founder beliefs.

World Church

Want to get through all the good Social Policies even faster? Got enough cash already making Tithe redundant? Get culture instead!

Papal Primacy

This isn't as effective for Venice than many other diplomatic Civs because Venice is rich enough to be able to maintain influence levels above even this higher equilibrium. Still, it's a backup option if all else fails.

Pilgrimage

Although this may seem a good policy to overcome the low faith output of building tall, keep in mind that you need quite a bit of faith in the first place to be able to spread your religion abroad early on, and if you can achieve that, you can probably found a religion earlier and pick a better belief.

Follower

Religious Community

Make your capital your holy city and you can easily take full advantage of this belief. 15% more production gives you a better shot at wonders, and gets all those national wonders out the way sooner.

Swords into Plowshares

Another policy to help you build taller.

Feed the World

And yet another way to help grow tall.

Divine Inspiration

A risky policy as you only have one city capable of building wonders. Still, it's one of the best ways for tall empires to improve their faith production.

Religious Art

It's not a spectacular policy unless you're playing culturally, but seeing as it's not hard for Venice to build the Hermitage, you're guarenteed that 5 culture and tourism.

Enhancer

Itinerant Preachers

Helps your distant cities to reinforce religious pressure to each other.

Religious Texts

Help keep your religion strong around your cities even if there's rough terrain and a lack of open borders making it difficult to send in Missionaries.

Religious Unity

City-States with your religion will see a lessened influence decay, so making it easier for them to hold your faith can be very useful. One problem, though - because you can't found cities, you can't build cities near to City-States with the intention of providing a local source of religious pressure. You'll probably have to make good use of trade routes for religious pressure.

Defender of the Faith

It's hard to move defenders between your distant cities, so instead, all you need to do is send a Missionary or Prophet around, giving you a handy 20% bonus which should help to get the upper hand over aggressors.

World Congress

It doesn't take much for Venice to buy out the favour of most City-States, and still have cash left over to bribe other Civs. As such, you can basically rule the World Congress - what you want to happen, happens. Just be careful you don't anger everyone else in the process, as you may be an economic superpower, but that doesn't make you a military one.

Here's a list of the decisions and brief notes on importance of some. Ones missing depend greatly on the situation you're in. Voting choices may vary depending on your game - if everyone's pushing for a policy you don't want, but your strategy doesn't rest on it, then it may be better just to abstain (or vote for it for possible diplomatic bonuses.)

Note "priority" refers to how high you should prioritise your votes if it comes up, not how much you should prioritise putting them forward. If Polynesia wants the International Games, you should prioritise to vote no, for example. If you could put forward a vote, then it'd be a bad idea putting the International Games on the table.

Arts Funding

Medium-High priority
Vote no

Great Artists have their uses in Golden Ages, but Arts Funding hurts the generation of Merchants of Venice, which get you more gold.

Cultural Heritage Sites

Low-Medium priority
Vote yes unless there's a strong cultural Civ in the game or you lack wonders

Embargo City-States

Very High priority
Vote no

You can't let this happen. That'd greatly hurt your diplomatic strategy.

Historical Landmarks

Medium priority
Vote no

It's more of a cultural Civ thing.

International Games

High priority
Vote no

A one-time increase of 30 influence for all City-States is meaningless when you have the cash to buy out their favour anyway. As such, there's little reason to let this policy pass - you can't manually make your puppets contribute towards World Congress projects, and if a cultural Civ wins, it pushes them towards victory rather quickly.

International Space Station

High priority
Vote no

Natural Heritage Sites

Low-Medium priority
Vote no unless you have natural wonders of your own

It seems surprisingly common for City-States to spawn near natural wonders, though remember that their cultural gain is reduced by 25% so this policy may help other Civs more than it helps you.

Nuclear Non-Proliferation

High priority
Vote yes

The City of the Doges and nukes do not mix well, unless you like irradiated water.

Scholars in Residence

Medium-High priority
Vote yes

Helps give you a leg up in the tech tree, so it's not a bad idea to take this.

Sciences Funding

Medium priority
Vote yes

Merchants of Venice are generated more frequently if this vote goes through.

Standing Army Tax

High priority
Vote yes

You can easily afford higher maintenance. Warmongering rivals cannot.

World's Fair

Medium priority
Vote no

Like the other projects, vote no as you can't manually make your puppets contribute.

Wonders

Only your capital can build these world wonders, so you're faced with tough choices over which ones are better - that'll depend on the situation of your game. It's near impossible to have them all.

As usual, wonders are arranged by era and by alphabetical order within each era, not necessarily in priority order.

Ancient Era

Stonehenge

Venice has a hard time getting faith in the early-game compared to other Civs, so Stonehenge is one of the best ways to push towards founding your own religion.

Temple of Artemis

Faster ranged unit production gives you a better shot at defending against early-game warmongers, and a food bonus helps Venice grow into the mighty city you want it to be.

Classical Era

Petra is absent from this section owing to the fact starting on or adjacent to a desert tile is very unlikely. If you do, then by all means go for it if you get the chance.

Colossus

As Petra is to Arabia and Morocco, the Colossus is to Venice - a wonder that you can squeeze more out of than pretty much any other Civ. Your coastal start bias means you can usually build this, and your UA makes it increase your Trade Route cap by 2, not 1. Certainly the most important wonder of its era for you.

Great Lighthouse

The bonus speed from the Great Lighthouse will allow your Great Galleasses to keep up with Triremes and Caravels, and blast them out the sea. Extra sight means fewer units are needed to keep your sea routes safe from Barbarians.

Great Wall

Probably the ultimate defensive wonder. While it's the only one to obsolete, your likely technology path in the late-game avoids Dynamite letting this wonder last even longer.

Hanging Gardens (Tradition Only)

Having a huge capital makes Venice a stronger Civ, and the Hanging Gardens helps you at that aim.

Medieval Era

Angkor Wat

As you can't buy tiles in puppet cities, a boost to acquiring them through culture is useful to help ensure your puppets get the good tiles before someone else does.

Borobudur

Three Missionaries is all you need to get your entire empire converted to your religion, as you shouldn't be taking too many cities. This wonder offers that without having to spend faith.

Hagia Sophia

If you need a leg up in founding or enhancing a religion, building the Hagia Sophia is a way.

Renaissance Era

Forbidden Palace (Patronage Only)

A high priority wonder - its unhappiness reduction is most effective for tall empires, and two extra delegates this early on means you can rule the World Congress even before City-State alliances start being counted.

Leaning Tower of Pisa

Helps you generate your UGP faster.

Porcelain Tower (Rationalism Only)

One nice use of all that excess gold - research agreements. Together with Rationalism's Scientific Revolution, you'll usually be getting double the science of the other Civ.

Red Fort

A helpful wonder for defence, particularly for the capital (which most needs the defensive bonus.) Puppet cities probably will build all the defensive buildings anyway.

Taj Mahal

Lower priority out of renaissance-era wonders, but a Golden Age offers you a fair cash boost at a stage of the game where your gold generation's good, but not yet absolutely dominant.

Industrial Era

Big Ben (Commerce Only)

Another nice use for all that excess gold - cheaper purchasing.

Modern Era

♥♥♥♥♥♥ Redentor

Venice eats through Social Policies fast, and ♥♥♥♥♥♥ Redentor can make that even faster. There's plenty of policies that are useful for you even in the late-game (e.g. the free Merchant of Venice from Liberty's Collective Rule.)

Statue of Liberty (Freedom Only)

A powerful late-game wonder. Your capital will probably be full of specialists, now it can be full of production too.

Atomic Era

Sydney Opera House

It's a coastal wonder, meaning you can usually build it, and it boosts the city's culture by 50%. Like ♥♥♥♥♥♥ Redentor, handy for eating through the last few policies.

Pitfalls to Avoid

Venice is probably the most unconventional Civ of the 43, so it's only normal to make a few mistakes along the way in the first game or two. I know I have, so here's a few I've made and a few someone else potentially could.

Thoughtlessly going for a scientific victory

Space Procurements may, at first glance, appear to make Venice a perfect candidate for the scientific victory - they can easily afford spaceship parts and hence get the thing up quickly. But while you may get spaceship parts completed quickly, Venice is notably poor at getting those technologies due to the 25% science penalty puppet cities get. That's the main component of scientific victories, not the spaceship assembling at the end.

Puppeting lots of City-States

The main role of your puppets is to provide places to launch Trade Routes from, and for that you don't need that many cities. If you puppet too many City-States, getting a diplomatic victory is going to be difficult, and Venice isn't anywhere near as effective at the other victory types.

Ignoring early-game defence

Ethiopia has strength as a small Civ. Venice does not - you may well only have two cities by the end of the classical era, and if your capital's gone, you're done for. Don't underestimate Walls in the early-game. They provide 50 extra HP for your city (Cities have 200 HP by default, so this is a 25% increase in a cheap, maintenance-free building.) That can often give you another turn's chance at repelling an invasion.

Playing excessively selfishly at the World Congress

Pushing your own interests at the expense of a small number of Civs is alright. Repeatedly doing that, or pushing your own interests at the expense of a huge number of Civs is risky. Venice isn't the best-equipped Civ in the world to face off angry Civs with vast arsenals - there's only so rapidly you can buy units, and it doesn't take much for a warmonger to pick apart your Trade Routes.

Deny Dandolo: The Counter-Strategies

Venice is rich but has huge vulnerabilities owing to the nature of its UA.

Playing against the UA: Serenissima

First and foremost, Venice is limited in where it can expand, being unable to found cities. Typically, this means that unless Venice goes warmongering, their capital lacks adjacent cities to back up its defence. As such, it's particularly easy to surround the city and invade, and as they rest so much on their capital, that'll be a blow they can't recover easily from.

But Dandolo has tricks up his sleeves. If you leave attacking Venice too late, they'll dominate the world economy and thus be hard to take out without angering a lot of people (on the plus hand, all those Trade Routes means more pillaging money.) Their strong economy also means they can rapidly buy units when under threat (though if you can find and destroy all their trade routes, you've mostly wrecked their economy.) As such, Venice is most vulnerable in the early-game, and the earlier parts of the mid-game. That's where being unable to found cities is holding them back, but they're not a dominant economic power yet.

Not interested in war? Well, there's two ways to go. Either save up some cash and buy your way to an embargo of Venice, ruining its mighty economy, or befriend them and try to attract as many trade routes as possible. The former's easier for diplomatic Civs, the latter is easier for scientific Civs (as Venice will want to leech of your tech advantage) and handy for cultural ones too (for that tourism bonus.)

Playing against Merchants of Venice

The most effective way to deal with a Great Person is to go to war and destroy it, though often that's not a viable choice. An alternative is to surround the Merchant of Venice, blocking it from moving, but there's only so far you can do this. A third option is just to invade and conquer City-States, but this'll make you unpopular among other Civs.

Probably the best thing you can consistently do about Merchants of Venice is to have advance warning about them. By placing a few units inbetween Venice and City-States they're likely to want, you can tell if a Merchant of Venice is coming and hence avoid earning influence with a City-State soon to be lost.

If Venice puppets a City-State, there's no mechanic for denouncing them due to that, and that city can never be turned back into a City-State again (on the other hand, this means the city can be razed, so a new city can be placed in a better position.)

Playing against Great Galleasses

These dominate the Medieval seas, though they're slower than Triremes or Caravels. Still, they're faster than pre-Astronomy embarked units, so generally the best thing to do is avoid fighting Venice at sea if possible. If that's not possible, then funnel them through a thin bit of coastline so you're not facing a whole fleet of them.

Once you've got to Astronomy, Great Galleasses aren't really much harder to face than regular Galleasses. Caravels can ambush them from the oceans.

Strategy by Style

Early-game Aggressors - No real trouble here.

Mid-game Warmongers - Attack their capital by land. You probably won't have too much trouble doing so.

Late-game Warmongers - Target their capital. You'll want this to be over quickly so they can't keep purchasing new units, so taking Carriers with plenty of aircraft and attacking by sea isn't a bad idea. If the war does last more than a few turns, then send units out to locate and destroy their Caravans/Cargo Ships to wreck their economy.

Cultural Players - Grab the wonders they want. Venice can only work on one at a time - you can work on more than one. Later in the game, their land will probably be good pickings for Antiquity Sites, seeing as Venice has a hard time building Archaeologists.

Diplomatic Players - If you can persuade a warmonger early on to attack Venice, you'll save yourself a lot of trouble later. If you can invade them personally, do so early. Otherwise, try to get to Printing Press fast, get the Forbidden Palace and boycott Venice before they have the chance to dominate the World Congress.

Scientific Players - You can use a tech advantage to invade Venice pretty effectively. Aside from that, it's essentially a race to see who can win the game first.

Other Guides

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Meta-guides

These guides cover every Civ in the game and can be used as quick reference guides.

• Civ summaries (Gives a brief overview of how each Civ plays)
  
• Civ-specific tricks, secrets and clarifications (Compiles the lesser-known features of each Civ)

Civ-specific guides, in alphabetical order

All 43 Civs are covered in in-depth guides linked below. In brackets are the favoured victory routes of each Civ.

• America (Domination)
  
• Arabia (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Assyria (Cultural, Domination and Scientific)
  
• Austria (Cultural, Domination and Scientific)
  
• Aztecs (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Babylon (Scientific)
  
• Brazil (Cultural)
  
• Byzantium (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Carthage (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Celts (Cultural)
  
• China (Domination)
  
• Denmark (Domination)
  
• Egypt (Cultural)
  
• England (Domination)
  
• Ethiopia (Cultural/Scientific)
  
• France (Cultural)
  
• Germany (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Greece (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Huns (Domination)
  
• Inca (Scientific)
  
• India (Cultural/Scientific)
  
• Indonesia (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Iroquois (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Japan (Domination)
  
• Korea (Scientific)
  
• Mayans (Scientific)
  
• Mongolia (Domination)
  
• Morocco (Diplomatic)
  
• Netherlands (Diplomatic, Domination and Scientific)
  
• Ottomans (Domination)
  
• Persia (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Poland (Domination)
  
• Polynesia (Cultural)
  
• Portugal (Diplomatic)
  
• Rome (Domination)
  
• Russia (Domination)
  
• Shoshone (Domination/Scientific)
  
• Siam (Diplomatic/Scientific)
  
• Songhai (Domination)
  
• Spain (Cultural/Domination)
  
• Sweden (Diplomatic/Domination)
  
• Venice (Diplomatic)
  
• Zulus (Domination)

[Liam Iwakura]

is Itinerant Preachers really that strong? I thought it only matters for gaps that are 11, 12, or 13 tiles away, and is eclipsed by Religious Texts in all other circumstances ( i.e. : for further cities, IP doesn't help; for closer cities, it's worse than RT)

[HayMax22]

Quick fix for you: In your "At a glance Part 1" under the Great Galleass section, your chart that lists the melee strength says 17, while below that it says "18 up from 16" in the Positive One-Off Changes section.

[Zigzagzigal]

I also make Civ 6 guides, so you don't have to choose :p

[Cobra_mkII]

It is only in the past 18 months that I have realised from Zigzagzigal's guides that I have only been messing with Civ 5 all these years. I now have Venice consistently winning victories so I moved on to Korea and Bablylon and now finally understand the game depth.

Now, ready to try another nation

I will skip buying Civ 6 for some time yet, I have only scratched 5's surface so far.

Thanks Zigzagzigal

[Sharcc]

winter spitting fax, venice is ludicrously good for domination victory

[W.R. Winter]

that's true but I think it evens out in the end; since Venice (the city) is more or less guaranteed extremely good infrastructure relative to other capitals, it can produce units at a fast clip while you use your absurd trade route gold to mass purchase in your puppets. it's actually kind of spooky, lol. the biggest complication I've found is that you're 100% reliant on how other civs place their cities, which can be facepalm-inducing.

anyway, thanks again for these guides. returned to this game to nab some more Steam achievements and I'm still impressed by their organization. better than the wikia tbh.

[Zigzagzigal]

Fixed the error; thanks.

It's been a long time since I last played Civ 5, but I think my main reasoning was that Venice is completely unable to use production to obtain units in most cities, giving a considerable disadvantage most civs don't have - even if the huge gold output makes purchasing units a lot cheaper.

All that being said, a puppet-heavy empire that still lets you purchase is great for managing happiness, so it's fair to bump up the rating here.

[W.R. Winter]

underselling Venice's warmongering ability a bit. actual domination victory becomes difficult past Industrial era but a proper start can lead to a neat puppet empire. besides, the relative lack of decisions makes straight diplomacy pretty boring imo. might as well give your neighbors something to think about while waiting to dump gold into city-states.

P.S. minor typo under Similar to Merchants of Venice : "while Austria very effective at diplomatic victories"

[Zigzagzigal]

The trick is to ally as many city-states as possible. Venice's huge gold output makes that easy, and Merchants of Venice receive double bonuses from trading missions.

[Sharcc]

Also diplomatic doesnt work in singleplayer, all the civs just vote for themselves no matter what