Venice?

[StayingPower]

It seems a lot of people on here are planning on starting with Venice? Why is this? Any specific reasons like location, units, etc?

[Lusted]

It's one of the 5 available factions at the start, the rest of the 17 playalbe factions have to be unlocked.

Personally im interested in them by the location, the fact they are so close to the Papacy, and i do plan on making a might trade empire with them.

[pero]

interesting point. I hope other factions can be unlocked like in rtw simply by changing the setings

[awisler]

1) Venetian Heavy Infantry-look at totalwar.com units section to see.
2) Venice is very good to make a nice economy, you can conquer greece, allowing for a wealthy trade income and naval dominance in the sea.
3) Faction colors
4) I like the location because of being able to easily access greece and then leapfrog to asia, but you can also expand north and/or west. This way you can easily play and be good to the pope, or sack rome ASAP and take over europe. I'm personally still debating as to what way to play first. Ill play a 2nd campaign as venice doing the opposite of what i did the first time.
5) Pavise Crossbowmen look awesome in venetian colors.

[Lusted]

Well the latest entry on the community blog say it is as simple as editing one line in the cfg file, the M2Tw equivalent of preferences.txt.

[Shaio]

hmm. i might play Venice first, to see if i can take out the pope in less then 10 turns.
( and then excommunicate anyone who attacks me for it)

that and i want to find out if you can plant puppet popes via military action.

[The Mongol]

hmm. i might play Venice first, to see if i can take out the pope in less then 10 turns.
( and then excommunicate anyone who attacks me for it)

that and i want to find out if you can plant puppet popes via military action.

You can't excommunicate people after you've killed the pope.

You can't full control the pope when your Priest wins either, it goes back into AI but you have strong ties with the pope and he will allow you to do more crusades etc.

[Lord Janos]

hmm. i might play Venice first, to see if i can take out the pope in less then 10 turns.
( and then excommunicate anyone who attacks me for it)

that and i want to find out if you can plant puppet popes via military action.

You don't "control" the Pope if you conquer the Papacy. Nor can you install your own Pope by force. He has to be voted by Cardinals, but you can influence their decision in various ways. You can't just excommunicate people if you take control of the Papacy.

[Yakov]

hmm. i might play Venice first, to see if i can take out the pope in less then 10 turns.
( and then excommunicate anyone who attacks me for it)

that and i want to find out if you can plant puppet popes via military action.

you can but cant excommunicate anyone and no one can launch crusades

[Sher Khan]

So, other than Venice, what are the other starting factions?

I hope Sicily is among them. I hope to start with either them or Venice and learn to make a monster economy to prepare for a long and arduous campaign as the Turks.

[xopium]

England, France, HRE, Venice and Spain I think...

The main reason I want to start as Venice is because it's such an exotic "trading" faction like Carthage IMO. I liked how the Venetians were so sneaky with taking advantage of crippled empires.

I would have preferred playing as the Pisans opposed to the Milanese too on the whole Italy thing, but I'll probably mod that in myself.

[Lusted]

Venice, HRE, France, Spain and England are the 5 starting factions.

Venice has Venetian Heavy Infantry(see the 3d unit section at .com), Genoese Crossbowmen i think, starts off with Crete so has a launch pad for crusades, and will probably end up in a big war with the Byzantines.

[Ulyaoth]

Venice has... Genoese Crossbowmen

The Venetians have Genoese crossbowmen? That's it, I'm not buying this game.

[Phaedo]

The Venetians have Genoese crossbowmen? That's it, I'm not buying this game.

Venice probably has pavise crossbowmen, of which the Genoese are an elite variety. I think only Milan has access to the Genoese.

[Lord Janos]

The Venetians have Genoese crossbowmen? That's it, I'm not buying this game.

Your loss.

I see the appeal in playing as Venice, but personally I think I'll play as England, France, or Spain first. I'll decide on the day I guess. Right now I'm leaning towards England, but who knows?

[unfortunate crow]

Is there a list of all the available factions anywhere?

I would like to be Viking, but if Denmark is in I will have to settle.

[valero]

either venice or hre, then byzans mayhaps.

[The Mongol]

The Venetians have Genoese crossbowmen? That's it, I'm not buying this game.

ROFL!

Anyways, I don't think they have Genoese crossbowmen anyways, the Milanese probably do.

@Lord Janos: Spain ftw, you know you want to. Everybody plays England >_>

[ruberkaiser]

ROFL!

Anyways, I don't think they have Genoese crossbowmen anyways, the Milanese probably do.

@Lord Janos: Spain ftw, you know you want to. Everybody plays England >_>

I think you are right. The Milanese start of with Genoa, and it specifically refers to the Milanese in thier unit description. That and they've only appeared on unit lists for the Milanese so far.

[StayingPower]

Hmm interesting. I think I'll play them second once I'm done with England