Venice

[pockettank]

i played a sort campgain w/ Venice to unlock all factions quite fast:

1.build up armies conquer Milan ASAP while slowly taking greece
2.if milan didnt have it try to beat france/germany to dijon and bern
3.after taking all of greece let constantinople fall to rebels -to expensive to hold up- then conquer all of asia minor
4. -Victory-

PS) i never got ventian heavy inf but i did have a 9* general who conquered asia minor

[Unorthodox]

I usually leave Durazzo alone (or if you want to take it for a Council of Nobles mission, that's fine, but after that you should sack it and let it rebel). The Byzantines want to take it and you really don't need to be in a war with them early on, when you've got the rest of Italy to deal with. The direction the Byzantines are coming from means they'll be attacking Ragusa, which is your strongest point to defend anyway. Initially you should focus on Milan and Sicily. Milan will attack you and eventually get excommunicated, which makes it easy to take their cities (you can even call Crusades on them, which is a nice boost). Buying Bologna from the HRE is also useful, since it means you don't have to get them involved in the Italian war. Once you've got all of Italy (Sicily will eventually attack you too), Cagliari and Ajaccio, then I think is the ideal time to turn on the Byzantines.

You should have a very strong economy, and as such, can afford a very wide and crippling attack on the Byzantines. Your first moves should be to take Rhodes (if you haven't already done so) from the Rebels and Nicosia from the Byzantines. Assemble powerful armies at the following locations: Ragusa, Iraklion, Rhodes, and Nicosia. Then, all in one go, march/sail your armies like so:
Ragusa -> Durazzo OR Sofia
Iraklion -> Corinth
Rhodes -> Thessalonica OR Smyrna
Nicosia -> Smyrna OR Iconium

If they've taken Iconium, then use your Nicosia army to take that, and then move your army from Rhodes to Smyrna. This means you don't attack Thessalonica yet, but it'll be easy pickings after you gain control of both Corinth and Sofia/Durazzo. This means that in the matter of a few turns, you'll have control of the Byzantines' coast on the Mediterranean, which takes away a huge number of their settlements and cripples their economy. The large scale of the attack also makes it hard for them to respond - they may be able to reinforce or counter-attack into one region, but either way, you'll still take at least 3 of their settlements. Then, from Durazzo/Corinth/Thessalonica, you can march on Constantinople or Sofia (if you left it alone - if you didn't, then you can easily take Durazzo, which should be isolated in the middle of your provinces anyway), and use the armies in Smyrna/Iconium (if you took it) to take Nicaea.

[Didz]

Another option is to capture Durazzo and then gift it to the Pope, that gets you extra POM points (I'm current his most loved follower with 8/10) and leaves Durazzo as a buffer zone between you and the Byzantines with Papal protection. I did this just before a large Byzantine Army descended upon it and they did a very rapid U-Turn and dissapeared back over the border sharpish.

However, I'm playing the short campaign so I have no real interest in starting a global war. I've eliminated the Milanese faction and so all I need to do is eliminate the Byzantines to win.

I tired buying Bolgona but the Emperor wouldn't sell so at the moment I am allied with them and won't bother them unless they bother me. Venice, Milan, Genoa, Florence, Zagreb, Ragusa and most recently Bern are all I own atm but I am getitng decent revenue and so far I am the strongest faction. I am just building up my ecomony and technology before striking eastwards to win the game.

[Unorthodox]

As far as I know, the HRE will always sell Bologna (at least in the early game, where keeping it doesn't seem to be in their interests - understandably so, because I've never seen them hold on to it for longer than 10-15 turns), as long as the price is right. Some people have gotten it for something like 500/turn for 10 turns, but for me it always cost over 10,000 florins. However, in all my games, they've ended up selling to me, even if I was at war with them.

[Didz]

Hmm! well I tried right at the start of my latest campaign and they wouldn't sell it. Perhaps I just didn't have enough money at the time.

The situation there is rather weird atm, as I am allied with them and the city was just put under seige by an amphibious assualt force from the Byzantine. I thought I'd let it fall and then liberate it as I need to start a war with the Byzantines anyway as I have to eliminate their faction. But on the second turn of the seige they suddenly agreed terms and ordered a ceasefire, so atm I have a massive HRE Army and a massive Byz army both camping in Bologna.

[Quillan]

At the start of my Venice campaign, it cost me 1000 per turn for 7 turns to buy Bologna, but I didn't bring up the subject until after I'd secured an alliance with them (paying them for it as well), so that might have influenced the cost. You have to play around a bit with the figures to see what they'll accept.

[KyodaiSteeleye]

Well, I'm just at the start of (my third attempt) at a VH/VH venetian campaign, and I have some advice on how NOT to start. I've decided to play this campaign with the aim of securing the whole Mediterranean - anyway, the first two campaigns I did my usual of leaving factions alone unless they attack me first, and went after Durazzo. Unfortunately, the Byzantines seem to always be after this too, so will attack you at the first opportunity. The Sicilians also seem to be scripted to land a full stack outside of Ragusa and attack it in about turn 6. Then you just have to deal with a follow up attack from Milan on Venice, and if you have taken Florence, and amphibious assault by the Moors (the Moors? what the hell do the Moors want with Florence?).

Anyway, both campaigns ended with me having my arse handed to me. Unfortunately, at this level, it seems the only way to survive is to buy Bologna, which comes a bit into 'cheesy' tactics in my book, but hey..
So, in my third attempt I now have a small power base of Venice/Bologna and Florence. I didn't go after Durazzo this time, but left the Byzantines to get it - they're now gunning for Ragusa, but at least I had time to build up some forces there. The Sicilians didn't send all their armies to Ragusa this time, which is a relief, except they've just sent them up to Bologna instead. The Moors have just started seiging Florence again. I'm in a better position as I have a good stack in northern Italy to take these two armies out, I'm just hoping that Milan doesn't join the party, or i'll be stuffed again.

This is by far the hardest faction i've played so far, at least in the early game (experience of England/Poland/Egypt).