Venice in 6.1

[Spartan90]

I'm finally going back to playing a campaign with Venice again, after countless campaigns with Genoa, France, HRE and the Byzzies. Just a general question about the city > castle debate.

With Genoa, it was a no-brainer to convert all your castles into cities. This wasn't really a tough decision, due to the fact that almost all of the settlements you take over early in the game were cities anyway (with the exception of Ajaccio). And everyone knows that Genoa's best units come from cities, so if anything was ever kept as a castle, it was generally one of the settlements in the Alps.

With Venice, however, they do have access to some pretty powerful units from their castles. And two of their starting settlements are castles - with Ragusa already being pretty heavily developed, which is a rarity with starting castles. My question is as follows: is it really worth keeping castles as Venice? On top of that, is it a good idea to convert Ragusa, and on a lesser note, Andora into cities, especially since Ragusa is already so heavily developed? Should a future Bari be converted into a city? As well as the castles in southern Greece?

My goal was to have all settlements in the Adriatic to be cities, and turn the maritime trade in that corner of Italy into an absolute cash-cow, one that would easily rival the Baltic, Aegean, and the maritime trade that pours out of Antioch into the rest of the Holy Lands.

[Warmaster Tibs]

When I play as Venice I have my citys do everything. I just keep the castles as they are and use them in furter dates for more powerfull troops.The Italian machine cannot be stopped!

[Spartan90]

So you don't even convert your Adriatic coastal settlements?

[Tyrenia]

I wouldn't convert. My reasoning is as follows:

1. Castles make good units for Venice
2. They are also easier to defend than cities
3. You need castle units to take over the Italian Peninsula
4. You will continue to upgrade these castles so they can produce better units
5. By the time the peninsula is yours, you will have upgraded your castles to such an extent that it would be a waste of tens of thousands of florins investment to turn them into cities.
6. Having lots of castles makes it easy to raise good offensive stacks quickly

It is for these reasons that I would agree with Warmaster Tibs, and keep the castles, PARTICULARLY Ragusa, as it acts as a bulwark of defence agains the might of Hungary and Byzantium, which will turn against you eventually, as you are Venice.

So 'keep' your castles