Can I make a couple of map proposals re Venice, one very simple and the other more difficult?

In PMTW, the odd border is closed for realism (mountains) or historicity - thus Moldavia to Poland or Bulgaria. This is a good feature which somewhat makes up for the lack of terrain effects on the 2D map.

I'd like to suggest closing Venice/Austria border certainly, possibly also Venice/Croatia and Venice/Tyrolia. Two reasons - having Venice besiege Vienna would be absurd and this encourages Venice to expand by sea rather than by land; also getting into and out of Italy wasn't easy, with the key routes passing through Switzerland (Grisons and Valtelline) and Savoy. Hence also the strategic importance of Milan. It also simulates a bit how hard Venice was to overrun and occupy (which no-one managed till Napoleon).

That brings me to my harder suggestion, which is a bigger Switzerland. The Swiss warred with ducal Milan (eg 1487) and also intervened forcefully in the Italian Wars. Enlarging Switzerland to touch Milan would be historical in this sense as well as in simulating its importance as a country of passage at least until 1648. That's the middle option. The biggest/hardest option would be to give Switzerland 2 provinces by absorbing most of Tyrolia - they could be the Swiss Confederacy and the associated Three Leagues to the south east (formed 1471 - there's a good wikipedia article on the Three Leagues). Re-using Tyrolia means that it wouldn't affect the province limit.

So there are a range of options there, from simple to hard, all with the same purpose. I'm reading Geoffrey Parker's massive Global Crisis on the 17th century at the moment, and that reminded me of his classic Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road, which really brought out the importance of Milan and the Swiss passes throughout the 80 year Dutch Revolt.