Venice: Lessons Learned

[kirroyale]

I'm about 100 turns in, playing on H/H, turnspeed down to 2turns/year. Currently have all of Northern Italy, Western Balkans (East coast of the Adriatic), Corinth, Crete, Rhodes, Smyrna and Corsica.

What have a I learned so far:

1) Avoiding excommunication. Until I got a Venetian Pope installed, which has made my life a whole lot easier, I had pretty much obeyed a list of irksome directives carefully designed to prevent me extending conquests into Christian lands.

When besieged by an enemy I have been told to lay off from attacking, I move a stack next to the city under siege, knowing that the AI always assaults as soon as it has built siege equipment. That way my underpowered garrison will be supported when the assault comes, but I have not taken offensive action myself.

2) Towns and Castles. I have Milan, Genoa, Florence and Bologna, all big income and well developed towns. So as not to have to turn any of them to castles I have a string of castles across the Adriatic from which to recruit the necessary troop types, and use a lot of mercenaries, which I disband when no longer needed to save money.

3) Defending Venice. You have to take out the HRE and Milan presence in N Italy, or your capital is under constant threat. Besides, they are valuable cities to own. Grab Florence right at the start by marching across Bologna. It's rebel, and gives you a vital port int he Western Med. You might upset the HRE by marching across their land, but Hell, they're mostly German, they know the score. As soon as Milan or HRE get excommunicated (and at some point they will), take the other cities.

4) Armies. In a stack I'll generally have about 40-50% missile units, the remainder split evenly between cavalry and infantry. Basically, any AI army that does not include cavalry will stand there and get shot at till I run out of ammo and send in the heavies, or they withdraw and get owned by pursuing cavalry. If there's cavalry present, they'll behave more agressively, and spearmen need to cover a path to your missile troops. If they have a lot of crossbows and the firefight is in doubt, that's what the cavalry is for - keep the enemy moving so they can't stop and shoot!

5) Navies. Venetian power is strung out across islands etc, and I made a big mistake in losing control of the sea to the Byzantines. Eventually I built up a massive fleet in Bologna and Vencie which had to go sweep the Byzantines away. Only then could I begin to role-play a bit and send Venetian merchants to far off lands - or have any chance of my crusaders reaching the holy land for that matter.

6) Merchants. go for the Silk resources near constantinople, and the precious minerals in the holy Land. From these a merchant can generate 100-250 florins a turn, from my experience.

[flashmax]

I am also playing Venice on H/H. I currently only hold 7 provinces and I made alliance with everyone around me.

I also sent my diplomat everywhere and established trade routes. I expected Byzanines to attack me, but to my luck the Turks attacked them and they made an allaince with me. This gave me some time to establish some better military units.

Right now, I am still holding all alliances and made my cities very strong, especially Venice is like a fortress.

I got only 1 castle right now, but I can build the heavy Venice Infantry untis, plus feudal Knights and mounted Feudal Knights + Crossbowmen.

I build up a huge army (1.5 stacks) and currently marching towards Byzantines.

Everything is looking good so far, but the HRE concerns me abit since they have a huge force in Bologna and I know its a matter of time before HRE and Hungary attack me.

My navy is ultra strong. Nobody can match my Naval power, so I can transfer units across the seas.

Venice is a good faction to play, since it has good "militia" units from cities and good military units from castles.

I only be in trouble if Hungary and HRE declare war on me while I conquere Byzantium.

Also beware of the inquisition. Make sure you build churches and hire tons of priest so your generals gain pity. I lost 2 generals cause of low pity.

[juliusceasar]

i just wanna put it up becouse i like the tips.