Re: Venice
No, you see, you are playing as Venice. In effect, you are now the Father of Capitalism. You just have America syndrome. No known cure.Originally Posted by Hrafn
In seriousness though, I don't think it's *all* your fault, sometimes you get some bad luck, even with hardcoded events. At least, I prefer to look at it that way.
"My milkshake brings all ye gentlefolk to the yard, and they're like 'It's better than thine.' Verily, it's better than thine, I could teach you, but I must levy a fee."
Re: Venice
Hehehe..
Ive resorted to "cheating" and saves/reloads the game until i get a heir with traits i could use...seems like changing varaibles (like the happiness in the coming of age town, whats building, what garrison and so on influences on the born traits).
After working on the "perfect" venetian strategy and restarting the game a multitude of times ive concluded with the following (plays on H/M):
- Take Durazzo and convert it to a castle and utilize enough troops to hold against Byzantine attacks until you can go on the offensive against Byzants. Wait for the mission and get 2500 florins before attacking! Dont give it away, as a castle its perfectly defendable and if you upgrade yo could turn it into a large town after you have pacified Thessalonica.
- Attack Zagreb first turn with faction heir. Build spears in Venice and hit Bologna in turn 2 or 3. You get no Papal interference so early and the HRE are happy to offer ceasfire few turns after you have taken it (seems like tha Kaisar residing in Bologna wasnt to popular guy with the HRE). Its a complete waste to fork out 6-7000 florins for a town you can take for free and sack as wel.
- Build a Ballista factory in Venice first turn and get 2 units of ballistas.
- Hit Florence and take it as well, then build up two armies both with one ballista each and attack both Milan towns. You are able to siege them same turn with a ballista in the army.
Around turn 10 or so you should have Venice, Bologna, Zagreb, Durrazzo, Florence, Milan and Genoa (and Crete). Thats a perfect base for heavy ecconomic and technical boosting of your faction.
Now you have some options: get a crusade going towards Tunis and capture the islands or get a crusade going against Antioch and hit the Byzantines hard on the way.
Im on turn 23 now and own the above mentioned cities together with Antioch (+ a small town besides Antioch), Rhodos, Corinth and Thessalonica. Had a lot of fighting with Byzants on the island outside Antioch but my returning crusaders will crush it on their way home. I got a council mission for damascus so thats next on the hit list.
Didnt go for the Islands since i used some turns to capture Bern Castle (still rebels) and Sicily had already taken Tunis.
The next 10 turns i will focus on building up the diplomatic realtions with HRE/Hungary (hope to get the heir married into thos dynasties) and keep the Pope happy, while i destroy the Byzantines. Allied to Portugal and Spain so its possible i try for a crusade against the moors in Cordoba so im able to boost those alliances as well :)
Got a really good game going now with excellent ecconomy, since i using the militia spear and crossbow 90% of the time and only supplement with crusader heavy forces when available.
Some more generic do's:
- Build a grain exchange first thing in every place a familymember will reside so as to avoid the badtrader trait.
- Build a smal church/chapel next so as to avoid the astrologer ancillary.
- Keep taxes on very high when building with a governor, to get good admin skills...
Re: Venice
Personally i thinkVenice a bit overpowered. They have a great economy, tons of land to expand and one of the deadliests armies i had ever seen. Pavise crossbowmen just kick ass, just put them on your front line and they clean the house, and with their shields on their back the casualties from enemy fire are close to none. Then bring Venetian Heavy Infantry, who just wipe out everything on their path. To finish, use that incredible stradiots, who seem more like some very fast mailed knights to me, to chase rooters, generals or even attack unwanted missile units (like arquebusiers).
Re: Venice
When I play Venice, I always crusade with my army from Iraklion to antioch after allying with the Pope (and after having done the usual stuff buying bologna,taking florence).
When Antioch falls,I sack it but more important I get a 6+ piety general.
With the general in Iraklion and training a lot of priests and sending them to the holy lands, I always get a theologians HQ there when I've upgraded it to huge city.
That HQ combined with a Cathedral gives me priests who become almost always cardinals 1 turn later. That's fairly handy for pope-control
Re: Venice
I have installed LTC and begun a new campaign as Venice because I liked the army composition. I started the Campaign on VH/VH and for my own enjoyment am sticking to a number of house rules;
1) Create a somewhat-realistic "story" and stick to it (ie. role-playing but on a faction level rather than individual characters)
2) never/ever save/reload. If I make a mistake that costs me a city, its tough, otherwise it encourages a lot of unrealistic play as you know you can try it a different way if it goes wrong, but in reality, a king never got the chance to turn back time.
3) Be the Pope's poster boy (fits with the story, also means never ally with muslim factions)
4) All armies, with the exception of troops moving around within my own borders MUST be led by a general.
For this campaign I decided that the doge of Venice would have his sights set on creating a trade network to try and rival Constantipople as the gateway to trade with the East. Having already taken Ragusa to protect ships in the Adriatic and setup a staging post to harbour & re-supply ships at Iraklion, there was already a safe shipping route all the way to Africa and the Middle East. I decided therefore that the first objective would be to take the Castle at Sofia and build a port whilst also taking Zagreb and thus creating a road from venice to the Black Sea which I would control. Taking Zagreb would also mean Venice was protected from the East. In Italy I bought Bologna from the HRE and Allied with them as well. I also took Florence which then represented my own league of city states.
I sent the Heir to Zagreb and both of the remaining sons to Sofia. I sieged Sofia for five turns until it gave in. Hungary almost beat me to it but I allied with them and got there one turn before them. There army has sat there on the border ever since and done nothing else (I think its confused because it wants to take Sofia but its allied with me and our relations are "outstanding").
After a few turns building up my conquests the Byzantines decided to take offense at my plans for breaking their trade monopoly and layed siege to Sofia. I fought them off but was too weak to strike back. Shortly after Sicily attacked Bologna and Iraklion, then the Moors landed and attacked Florence. It seemed like a case of if you have something worth taking, someones going to want to take it!
Next the Pope deciced to call a crusade on Jerusalem. It was bad timing as I was already over-stretched but I cmae up with a plan to turn it to my favour. The Doge was defending Italy and the two youngest sons were stuck in Sofia. This left the heir in Zagreb, until now safe from harm. I decided to gather every spare man I could beneath the heirs banner and march to Jerusalem -- right through Constantiniople. Reinforced by the garrison at Sofia the crusaders smashed a large Byzantine army and then took their Capital before continuing on their way. They succesfully sacked and secured Jerusalem and the heirs own son took the castle at Acre.
Back in Greece, the second eldest son was returning to Italy to assist his ageing father whilst the third son was to rule the newly conquered Constantinople. Of the Doges grandsons one was governing Bologna, one took charge of the garrison at Sofia and the other was to command the army assigned to putting an end to Byzantine aggression.
Just as things looked like they were getting back on track, the Doge died and the byzantines emerged from sourthern greece with an enormous army. Ragusa was lost, and Sofia and Constantinople both fought off difficult sieges. The general in Bologna died in battle leaving only one man to govern Italy which was now also under attack from the Milanese. I had another general come of age at Sofia and I managed to gather enough troops to make a half-stack for re-taking Ragusa. This new-kid has so far done a great job of fighting his way through to the castle and securing it. The general at Sofia marched south with about 1/3 of a stack to help break yet another siege at Constaninople and was caught by a full stack of byzantine spearmen and archers. After fighting a heroic victory, the survivors at constantinople have joined up with them to create an almost-full stack with both generals in just north of thessalonica. The general at Ragusa is going to join them soon with another half stack to try and finish the Byzantines in europe once and for all, although they will still be outnumbered.
Meantime, back in italy, the new Doges brother in Venice has just had another son come of age and immediately despatched him with a full stack of militia to take milan after the pope just excommunicated them. he then managed to get himself killed in his first battle (although the battle was won) so the Doges brother has joined the army from venice to finish the siege.
While all thats been happening, my 3 enemies, Sicily, Milan and the Byzantine Empire have all allied with the HRE to create my very own axis of evil. The HRE has not turned on me just yet but it did just ask for 150 florins in return for not attacking me which doesn't look good. At this point they are the largest and strongest faction in the game. the second largest is france who I will also have a border with soon. I am the the third largest overall though there are 3 0r 4 factions of near equal size.
My plan now is as follows. Finish off milan and genoa and then reinforce northern italy like crazy before the HRE and maybe even france turn up. Build them up into some money making machines while i'm at it. Finish off the Byzantines and then get all the spare troops from that region onto a boat to take Sicily and Cagliari and unite Italy under my rule (with the blessing of the Pope of course). If I can achieve that, I might look to go crusading again, ultimately I want to take on the turks and link up all the way to Jerusalem.
All in all, this has so far been an excellent campaign, I've lost battles, lost regions, lost generals, I'm not the biggest or strongest, I'm not rolling in cash but I'm not broke either, I haven't got the best troops but I'm not stuck using clone armies of militia, all this and I still feel I can win! I just hope the late game is going to be as good. I think I would have been a lot more powerful now if I had blitzed northern and then Southern Italy at the beginning before turning towards Greece but I doubt it would have made quite such a challenging mid-game as what I have now.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks