The Republic of Venice: a Fan Civilization Design

[DoctBaghi]

The Most Serene Republic of Venice

From 697 to 1571

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Bonuses

Scouts and flagship can trade with trade posts, and they can boost other merchants.
Vills gathering from shore fish also gather gold in a 4:1 ratio.
Blacksmith upgrades doesn’t cost gold (except siege engineers and military academy).
Ships are 20% cheaper.
The bombard is available in the Age 3, but with weaker stats.
Archery ranges units cost 5% less food for each house near the range (1 tile) up to a maximum of a 25% discount.

Influence sistem

Patronage of the Arts:
A building built inside the area of influence of a TC is cheaper. Farm aren’t included, but landmarks are (so aging up can be cheaper). TCs gives a 10% discount in their influence area, every other building (except farms) built in the area progressively increase the discount by 2% (farms gives nothing). The discount is capped at 30%.

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Unique Units:

Doctors:
The iconic plague doctor with the mask. It heals faster than monks and it can be trained since the age 2. With upgrades, it gains the ability of building lazzaretti and poison enemy buildings. A poisoned building has a 15% penalties on its attack, resources deposited, units health that are trained, and it can’t heal units inside. The only way to stop the negative effect is to idle the building for 100 seconds.
Cost: 200 gold

Arsenalotti:
An unique and stronger spearmen of the venetians, armed with a tre spiked spear (or alternatively a polehammer). Like other spearmen is good against cavalry, but it also have a small bonus against all heavy units. Every villager can be transformed into an arsenalotto by paying the additional 30 gold cost.
cost: 40 food and 45 gold.

Targonieri:
Unique man at arms of the venetians armed with a schiavona chest sword (or alternatively a short spear) and a pavise. A special man at arms that have extra armor against ranged units, and that can absorb part of ranged damage directed against other units (a bit like the HW in aoe2). It compensate that with a lower attack.
cost: 70 food and 30 gold

Galley:
This one starts out as a standard galley, like other civs, but through special techs, it get the possibility of getting special roles.
When a tech is researched, all galleys present at the moment (and the ones that will be produced from now on) will get that effect. When the next tech is researched, you’ll lose forever the benefit of the previous techs, and change forever your galleys. For example, when you get the fire ships tech, all your galleys get a fire attack, but when you get the armed galleys tech, all your galleys lose the fire ability, and substitute it with a long distance cannon attack.

Galea grossa:
Unique Imperial ship of the venetians.
So the galea grossa is an heavy big ship armed with cannons that can fire in every direction with a good range. To compensate that, they are slow and very expensive ships.
Alternatively, the galea grossa can be the last upgrade for the venetian galley.

Flagship - an leader UU of the venetians. It can have several effects, between buffing water trade, regenerate the health of your ships, and have all military ships move and fire faster.

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Unique Buildings:

Arsenal:
Replace the dock. A unique building that has more HP than a standard dock and can get emplacements. Cost 50 wood more.

Lazzaretti
A special building that heals all units in an area. Each medic that is garrison inside increase the healing area of the lazzaretto. The healing rate is roughly 1/4 of that of a monk.

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Unique Technologies:

Age 2

• Munde - merchants and merchants ships are stronger and are faster.
• Fire ships - galley get a short ranged area of damage attack. It have a low rate of fire, but the ship can still fire arrows.
  Bigoncia - increase the pierce armor of infantry by +1
  Poisons - doctors can poison enemy buildings. If not left idle for a total of 100 seconds, those buildings train units with 15% less health, vills drop 15% less resources, and the building deals 15% less damage. Buildings also can’t heal units inside.
  
  Age 3
• Cranequins - increase the xbows attack and range by +1.
• Polehammers - further increase the arsenalotti anti heavy units attack.
• Central cannon - remove the galley fire attack and substitute it with a long distance cannon. It requires fire ships UT.
• Condottieri - all cavalry gold units are trained 15% faster.
• Plague - poison effect can be spread to other buildings if the poisoned building isn’t quarantined.
  
  Age 4
• Lateral falconets - galleys get 2 extra frontal cannons. It requires central cannon UT.
• Higher caliber - increases the attack of the galee grosse.
• Buonavoglia - villagers are affected by blacksmith armor upgrades.*
  accessible only through the dogal palace.
• Stradiot - unique upgrades for the horseman that replaces the elite horseman. It greatly improved the stats but the wood cost is transformed into a gold cost with a 1:2 ratio.
  accessible only through the fondaco
• Cretan archer - unique upgrades for the archer that replaces the elite archer. It greatly improved the stats, but the wood cost is transformed into a gold cost.
  accessible only through the fondaco
• Fanti de Mar - unique upgrades for the archer that replaces the elite arsenalotto. It greatly improved the stats, but it also double the gold cost.
  accessible only through the fondaco
  Dry dock - all ships are built 30% faster
  Captains - archers cost 25% less food even without houses nearby.

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Landmarks:

AGE 2

Rialto Market
Works as market. Markets can automatically exchange a percentage of the natural resources dropped into nearby eco buildings connected by the influence into double that quantity of gold. The ratio can be 0% or 20%-50% (it works for every natural resource except for gold).

Lighthouse
Special tower. Increase by +5 the LoS of all buildings linked to it by the patronage influence area and increase the range of a building near it (2 tiles max).
AGE 3

Clock tower
Globally boost all eco buildings to work 25% faster, both at training and research (arsenals are affected only on their economic units/techs).

Academy
An early university. All universities techs are available earlier and at 30% discount.

AGE 4

Fondaco
Building that give access to unique mercenary upgrades of trash units, like the cretan archer, the stradiot (horseman) and the fante de mar (spearmen). This units have higher stats, but the wood cost is substitute by a gold cost. The fondaco can also train them.

Palazzo Dogale
Boost it can boost one resource by globally increase all their entries by 20%. It also unlock a special upgrade for venetians vills.

WONDER

San Marco Basilica

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So, since AoE4 is still a young game, there still time to get a lot of new civs in the game. With this topic however, I don’t want to discuss the general argument of what civs should be added next or in what order. So if you are here for that, well I’m sorry.

Here I want to post a fan design of a civilization very dear to me, the Most Serene Republic of Venice. Some of you may already know me, since I’m active on the forum, and some may also know that I already posted a civ design for aoe2 (go check it out if you are curious, it’s full of historical facts). Now, aoe2 is a game already full of civs, and with already an umbrella civ that should already cover the venetians (the Italians), but AoE4 offers new possibilities…

So, first off, why not an Italian civ? Well, there are a number of reasons. First of all, Italy at that time wasn’t united, but was fragmented in city states that evolved into regional powers, so while culturally speaking, we could say that the idea of an Italian people was born during the renaissance, in reality there wasn’t such thing. The other reason is that the French civ already some chunk of italian aspects (not without reasons eh…) like the pavise ability of their arbs. The third and last reason is that AoE4 went into the direction of specific historically accurate civ, finally abandoning the umbrella civ concept. So introducing a specific Italian state instead of an umbrella Italians civ is a better choice in my opinion.

Now, I’ll start by admitting that I’m biased towards the venetians, and that all the Italians states would deserve a spot in the game. But if you need to choose one, I would choose among the ones that were at least indipendent during AoE4 timeframe. The only two Italian states free of external control were republic of Venice and the papal state. Now, the second, while formerly indipendent, in practice heavily depended on external interventions of foreign kings, and it’s power was almost only political.

Venice on the other end, was an economic empire, and a fearsome military enemy when needed. The republic stretched through north Italy, Istria and Dalmatia, Crete, Cyprus, several Aegean and Ionian islands, and even Crimea, and had ties with all civilizations present in the game at the moment. So they deserv a spot in the game in my humble opinion.

I’ll dwell into Venice history more and more with time in this topic, but for now, here is my civ design. I’ll say that I’m by no means an expert gamer, though, I know the basics of the game, and I think that my design have potential. Still, AoE4 is a new game for everyone, and trying to make a civ using new mechanics is hard, so bear with me.

So, the one last thing before seeing the bonuses. Constructive criticism and opinions are not just well accepted, but incouraged. If you think that something is broken, OP, UP, bad designed, unoriginal, by all means post you opinions (always respectfully thought). If you have your ideas for a venetian civ design, or bonuses or units, do it too. But two things: first, know that I value historically accuracy more than anything else. We can bend the history for balance purposes of course, but I won’t write a bonus down if it makes no sense. Second, know that this is my fan design, so I’ll have the final word on decisions. Still, expect a lot of polls to express your opinions.

I hope that you like my design, and that you’ll keep visiting for the future updates.

[DoctBaghi]

A bit about me.
For those that don’t know me, I’m a long time italian fan of the age of empire fan. I played through all of them, and now I’m playing AoE4.
I live as you may have guessed, il live near Venice, and I always have been fascinated from its history. For this, I already did a fan design for the venetians for aoe2.

New Civ concept: the Venetians

So, since we will get new civs, my hope to see a venetian civilization has risen once again. This was an old civ concept of mine, that I designed years ago, but never shared since we had the Italians and because of the DE “no new civs policy”, but since we got the sicilians… I know that there are already many requests for new civs, especially for cultures that weren’t included even a bit, and by any means I mean that this civ should to take precedence. I just want to share my ideas and vision …

[DoctBaghi]

Patronage Influence Sistem:
With Venice economic growth, and with the constant need of new building and structures (especially since they had a long history of fires) more and more people started contributing. Nobles, merchants and in general private citizens contributed to the expenses with their personal wealth in exchange for prestige, often adorning those buildings with numerous riches. This also heavily alleviate the public cost, for this reason, the more your city grows, the bigger the discount on building becomes, to simulate the growing numbers of patreons that alleviate your empire expenses.

Goldless Blacksmith Upgrades:
This might seem just a cheap copy of AoE2 spanish bonus, but there actually is an historical reason. Venice had the custom of buying the armor for their soldier, sailors and rowers, and when necessary, Venice would had so much armor that it was able to armor even their citizens when needed. Most weapons too were paid ahead by the state, and then they held back gradually part of the pay of the soldier for lending it. At the battle of Lepanto, the spanish were stunned by how much armor and fire power venetians ships and fortress had. It was in fact way more than enough to armor every single venetian of the fleet (which were suffering more from a lack of men, than a lack of weapons).

Each House near a Range reduces the food cost of its units:
With the growth of Venice, less and less people were needed for the sustenance of the city. This meant that more men were available for jobs like sailors, rowers or soldiers. In all three cases, these men needed to know how to fight, and those armed citizens (except for the arsenalotti that we’ll see later on) often fought with the ranged weapon of the time (bow, xbow or early rifles) since they were weapons suited for both naval and land combat. For this reason, when your ranges draw troops from the population of nearby houses, they cost less food, since less people were needed to sustain those troops, but they still need to be paid in order to be incentived to go to war.

Venetian markets have fixed exchange rates:
I think this doesn’t need much explanations. Venice prospered as a trade hub, it exported salt and europe inland goods, and imported silk and spices. This process made Venice rich through commerce, and in the city every good could be found. For this reason, buying and selling resources at the market is easier because even if at the start you don’t have the best buy/sell rates (like the rus for example) those are constant, and don’t get too disadvantageous over time, so you can always rely on those.

Ships are 15% cheaper:
This one seems straightforward, but it’s actually a bit more complicated. Basically, the arsenal of Venice (as we will see) was famous for its incredible production capacity. A faster working dock is unfortunately already present in the game, so I opted for this one instead, and the reason is the following. Venice great ship production capabilities didn’t came only through its assembly line arsenal, but also because they have the usance of well conserving ships hulls in a dry area. This, alongside a stockpile of needed materials, made the process of arming ships both faster and cheaper, so since we can’t simulate the “faster” we will simulate the “cheaper”. To balance that, venetians docks, the arsenals, are more expensive.

Early bombard:
The venetians were among the first to use cannons in Europe. The first recorded event where they were used was in the war of Chioggia against Genoa, were they first armed ships with cannons. But more likely they start using them way earlier. The venetians were also expert siege engineers. Even without cannons, they successfully sieged and taken Constantinople in the fourth crusade, and strenuously defended Famagusta from the ottomans artillery with their own counter artillery.

The arsenal:
The arsenal of Venice was the first public mass production facility, with the first assembly line in history. It was capable of producing one ship per day, and it was heavily protected by walls and towers, it was for sure the safest and more defended place in all Venice. It’s workers, the arsenalotti were skilled craftsmen and labors, that also provided for the safety of the place. Now, a working speed bonus for docks is already taken by the Chinese, that’s why I added another bonus *(as seen earlier) to mimic the arsenal power.

The lazzaretto:
The lazzaretto was the among the first sistematic quarantine sistem where Venice isolated and cure it contaged inhabitants. From the name of lazzarus (the dead that Jesus resuscitate) this sistem while wasn’t perfect, it worked, and Venice often get out of pandemics way before other states.

The arsenalotti:
The labors of the arsenal. Those men often served as heavy infantry units, both on guard duty through the public palaces of the city, and as elite units in war time. During the siege of Constantinople, thanks to their skilled workers/soldiers, the venetians arsenalotti built the siege equipment that sieged the city. They used all kind of weapons. When they guard the dogal palace, they used halbards or brandistocchi (spears similar to trident).
In game, they are an heavy unit and they use a three spikes spear that give them a melee bonus damage against heavy units (knight and man at arms) other than generic cavalry. Also, since all citizens could have been conscripted into the arsenal, so every vills in game can be transformed into an arsenalotto by paying the additional gold cost.

The targonieri:
Such units represents the standard infantry units of an Italian mercenary army of the Renaissance in Italy. The unit had the purpose of offering a mobile protection for other ranged units. In fact, a targoniere was often paired up with a crossbowman or an arquebusier.
In game it replace the man at arms but unlike it, the targoniere have better ranged armor that makes them an excellent unit for shielding other ranged units, since they have also an ability to absorb part of ranged damage that pass through them. In compensation, they have less attack.

The galley
Galleys were the core of the venetians armada. The in-game unit start with a galley identical to others civ ships, but through several unique techs, they get unique kind of attacks, making them into fire ships, or long distance artillery ships, but without losing their arrow attack.
In order, the galley get:
Age 2 - fire attack
Age 3 - frontal cannon
Age 4 - 2 more frontal cannons

The galea grossa:
Technically, the name is the same of the French galeass, but since the galeass was an unique ship of the venetians, this one is a more unique and accurate version of it, with the original name. It is different from the French version because they can fire in every direction with cannons. On the other hand, French get their galeass an age earlier.
The galeazza or galea grossa was a huge commercial ship, modified to host a great number of cannons in every direction. The ship was slow and difficult to maneuver, but it was also unassailable, since it was high and it could host a great number of soldiers. In the battle of Lepanto, the galeazze dealt the first blow to the ottoman armada, throwing their formation into caos, and clearing several ships of their crews. The ottomans were incapable of boarding them, and despite they were able to get pass them, it was not without a price.

The doctor:
The units are the doctors with the tipical venetians masks that made them famous during the pestilence times through Europe. Despite the iconic looks isn’t clear when and where it started (so it might be a bit out of the aoe4 timeframe) but in general, Venice was always ahead of its time in dealing with plagues and illness. For example, they were fast to understand the importance of the quarantine, and it encouraged the medical practice. In every ships there must also always be a men trained in the basics medical practice.
That’s wasn’t the end though. Venice more than once resort to unconventional means to deal casualties to the enemy. Among these, there have been several attempts to poison the enemy troops. Poisoning the wells was of course a common defensive tactic, but there have been attempts of actually starting a plague epidemic among the enemy armies by doctors financed by the state. While we don’t have proves that this actually worked, I think that it might still be worth to include in the game.
In game, the units is used primarily as a early healer, but if protected, it can poison enemy buildings, forcing them to be idle to heal.

THE LANDMARKS
Rialto Market
The market of Rialto was the famous market of Venice, were it was said that you could find every goods that you might want. It was the epicenter of the foundation of the city, were the Roman citizens take refuge from the goths of Alaric and the Huns of Attila. In this market you might also have found excellent craftsmen selling their work, mostly luxury goods. The special in game effect try to simulate that. Part of the resources gathered doesn’t go into your stockpile because they are held back, and transformed into luxury goods, that then are automatically sold for an higher price. This allows you to get an higher absolute value of resources (you get some resources for free) and you plan on going heavy into gold units, it might be useful. The counterweight is that on the other side you get less of the other resources, so it would be like your vills work slower.

Lighthouse:
This one is pretty much self explanatory. In Venice, lighthouses were pretty common, and every island had a tower that had this function, both for night navigation and for fog days. They would also function as sentinels, and places were the local militia could rally for small military activities. For that reason, the lighthouse is a defensive landmark, allowing you to see enemies sooner, and to have a boost on defensive buildings near it. It of course can be a good choice to protect and boost your arsenals too.

Clock tower:
This one is too pretty much self explanatory. The San Marco clock tower was used by sailors to know when to sail, and in general to all workers to know when to get back to the arsenal. For this reason, the landmark increase the efficiency of all your eco buildings, reducing the time for training and researching.

Accademia:
Italy was the birthplace of the universities, at least for how we know the modern university. Venice too had a prestigious university both in their city and in the controlled Padua, but what made Venice unique, was their strong resistance to the papal power. In fact, despite being a catholic state, and allied with the pope, Venice always maintained a strong autonomy from it. For this reason, scholars and books banned from the inquisition could find a safe heaven in the most serene republic, and from there they were smuggled in the rest of Europe. For this reason, through the academy you get access to the university tech sooner, and at a cheaper cost.

The fondaco:
The fondachi were buildings were the foreign people of one country could stay while in Venice. There were several fondachi, but the more famous ones nowday are the fondaco of turks and the fondaco of germans. In there, you could have found merchants, sailors, adventurers and mercenaries. Venice often used a lot of mercenary armies, some were the condottieri armies of the Italian peninsula, but other were mercenary of other countries. I decided to include some of them as unique upgrades of trash units, this have the advantage of making them stronger, but the venetians then lose the possibility of training cheap trash units.

The dogal palace:
The doge was the leader and representative of Venice. It descended from the old dux of the bizzantines, and it was elected by the venetians. It didn’t had absolute power, since that belongs to the council of the nobility, but it was the supreme notary of the council, and it was the military leader of the republic. Still, the dogal palace was the symbol of the economic power of the republic. For this reason, this landmark allows you to make use of the full power of the Most Serene Republic of Venice, since it greatly boost all the entries of a specific resource, having your vills work faster and your trade and relics generate more gold, but only one resource can be boost at a time, and changing resource requires some game time to reset the building.

[StatedOregon5]

Ngl, I like the idea.
It seems to fit very well with how civs are designed on this game, not too many unique units or gimmicks while still making the civ unique, I like it!
You definitely did a lot of thinking on this

[DoctBaghi]

Thanks, it really means a lot to me.

I did a lot of thinking, and I’m still doing it since there are still some things that I’m not sure of it. But I’m doing my best.

For example, the early bombard was a last minute addition, and I’m still not sure of it. Initially I would have preferred a siege building bonus for the arsenalotti, as a nod to the siege of Constantinople in the fourth crusade, but I couldn’t think of anything that was both unique and meaningful.

That’s why I instead opted for the early bombard. That and to give more meaning to an early university, along with their early gunpowder on galleys.

Still, in general the civ is always changing, and I’m reading a book on the history of Venice to make the civ more accurate as possible.

I’ll of course post more and more. In depth posts on units and bonuses, landmarks history, meaningful battles and events, hypothetical campaigns, and in general history of the republic.

[StatedOregon5]

Cool stuff, keep them coming, maybe devs could implement some of these ideas on potential new civs

[KettleBunny]

I hope your post gets more attention, I love it when people take the time to make these civ posts. Especially when they go to all the effort to include upgrades and specific landmarks. Grand job!

[DoctBaghi]

Yeah of course. If the Republic of Venice will never be introduced, then those ideas could still be recycled for other civs, of course appropriately justified on the historical aspect.

Still, I hope that they’ll introduce them as representative of the Italian states, especially if they also plan of introducing the byzantines and ottomans, so that the venetians can Clash with them.

[DoctBaghi]

Thank you very much.

It is fun to play with history and design new civs by studying their history. And by my experience, devs do read the forum and listen to suggestions, so let’s hope.

I would also like to give more feedback and opinions on the other people fan designs, since I enjoy quite a lot to see other people works too, but unfortunately that’s the limited time that I have…

[DoctBaghi]

Here are some changes and small corrections that I made about the design. In general, I felt like some bonuses were too similar to other ones, or too weak. I also noticed that I didn’t gave much UTs for land, so I added some.

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Goldless Blacksmith Bonus - it doesn’t include siege engineers and military academy too.
Just a small correction, the bonus should include only armors and weapons, not tactics.

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Condottieri UT can now be researched in the Age 3 at the blacksmith and make all gold units training 15% faster
The tech was too weak to be included just in the age 4 and to be bound to a landmark, since venetians lack of some land UTs. That way, the tech, in combination with the Rialto Market LM allows the venetians to make a decent use of their knights.

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Cheaper Ships - buffed from 15% discount to 20% discount.
This was because English basically have the 10% cheaper ships with shipwright, so the bonus felt too weak to be the main strength of the civ. Consider also that unless you can make use of the Venice influence sistem (which is unlikely in the early age, since you need to be linked to a TV through the influence area) venetians docks are more expensive.

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Cranequins - instead of lowering the reload time, the tech now increase the attack and range of xbows by +1.
This one has been changed because it was too similar to the French stirrup UT. Instead, the cranequin was a mechanism that allows to load heavier xbows, so the piercing strength and range of the weapon was higher.

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Scapoli - UT removed and substituted with dry dock
That’s because the UT was too similar to additional sails, and just better of a 5%. I prefer to give them something original, than a buffed standard tech.

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New techs:

Dry dock - all ships are built 30% faster
Like I told, Venice used to keep about 60 or more empty hulls in a dry space, so that they could easily arm them fast when needed. I know that with 20% cheaper ships it might seem too strong, but it’s an age 4 expensive tech, and venetians navy is anyway composed only of galleys, without any balistae units.

Bigoncia - increase the pierce armor of infantry by +1
This was simply a particular helm used by Italian troops. It was used by all foot soldiers, but I decided to limit it to infantry only, since in my opinion they lacked some unique techs for land warfare.

Captains - archers cost 25% less food even without houses nearby.
This is added so that in the late game you don’t have to be crazy and perfectly place houses near the ranges. The other bonus was though more for the early game, and to force you on deciding if it’s better a forward range, or keep the ranges at home.

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I’ll update the OP as soon as I can, so that you can find all details there too.

As soon as I can, I’ll also update the complete tech of the civ, with all the units, techs, and UU/UTs, so keep an eye for that.

[VicKestrel]

Great job mate.
I did a concept for Ports but after seeing your awesome research might make another one more I depth.

[DoctBaghi]

Thanks a lot.

I had the advantage of having already done a civ concept for the venetians for aoe2, but I’ll admit that doing bonuses for aoe4 is harder. I’m constantly putting everything to question, in fact I already have some ideas of changing something else.

Anyway I’ll gladly read your design for the portos too, and give feedback if I can.

[VicKestrel]

Oh it’s very barebones compared to yours, just a bit of brainstorming really. Like you said bonus for AoE4 are not easy.

While I do have a few resources on Portugal history, transferring those to gameplay is a bit complicated.

[DoctBaghi]

Yeah I know. At least I had experience with aoe2, and a less successful one with aoe3 (which onestly is actually more complicated…).

With aoe4 you need to make a civ that is about 60/70% like an aoe2 civ, and a 30/40% that is completely out of the box.

[VicKestrel]

Again you did amazing. I really enjoy this type of feedback, its inspiring

[DoctBaghi]

Some more small changes, to make the civ more balanced.

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Lighthouse LM - special and strong tower. Increase the LoS of all buildings connby the influence area and increase the range of all buildings near to it (2 tiles max).
Before: the LM alone could train only arsenalotti.

The ability to train spears never convince me, this way at least you have either to choose to protect an exposed area, or to buff your TV offensive capabilities. You can also build it near a dock, in this case you would most likely lose the cheaper age up (since you are far from the TC) but you would boost your already strong docks (arsenals) on the defensive side. Overall there is more decision making.

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Rialto Market LM - after building the LM, all markets gain the ability to automatically exchange natural resources for gold, so you don’t have to connect every gathering point to the LM, but it’s enaugh to build a standard market nearby. The on/off switch for the effect is global.

Small change, mainly to make use of the effect without having to become mad on linking every single gather point to the main city through houses. That way it’s enaugh to build a market nearby, and you can also choose what resources you want to partially convert into gold and what not.

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Arsenalotti Cost changed from 45 food and 30 gold, to 40 food and 30 gold.

Small change. On an absolute value, the arsenalotto is now cheaper than a spear, especially on food, but it’s more punishing to transform a vill into it, since you would spend more food overall.

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I’ll change the OP as soon as I can.

I’ll also want to start a series of posts where I explain how the venetians should be played in each age, starting with the age 1 of course, so check it out in the next days.

I’m also preparing the tech tree post, it’ll be a bit long and only text, for having some images you will have to wait, but for the moment it should be enough.

[DoctBaghi]

So, basically this is how I imagined the venetians being played when I was designing them.

On this series, I’ll make 4 post, one for each age, where I’ll explore how the gameplay would evolve depending on your choices. When all 4 ages will be explored, I’ll build a 5th post where I’ll sum up the main strategies.

Of course you can help me by thinking and searching for strategies and build orders that I didn’t see, and suggest them here below.

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So from the start, the venetians doesn’t have much. Their buildings near the area of influence of the TC are cheaper yes, but that does little at the start. Consider that on the first house you would save 5 wood, and 6 on the second. LC, MC and mills are also usually far from the TC, so it’s harder to place them inside the discount area, and the discount it would be anyway between 5 and 10 wood each. You can use houses to connect those buildings, but you may also want to group up them for later on placing a range nearby (and using the cheaper archer bonus). If you use an house for connect the LC, and another one for the MC, it’s difficult to then place a range that is near both.
So in the best case scenario you save 26 wood, which isn’t bad but not much either. If it’s a water map it doesn’t even cover the cost of your more expensive dock.

So as you can see the choices of how you place your buildings impact the game from the first age. But anyway, your main objective is to try to have between 2 or 3 buildings inside the area of the TC, so to buff the discount to between 14% and 16%. That’s because the discount affects landmarks too. So while you still need to reach the cap of 400f and 200g to click on the LM, after you place the foundation you only spend what the total price minus the discount.

Estimating the discount isn’t easy. My estimate is that you would age up with the discount given by a TC and 2 houses, and at best a gathering point. You may connect the second one with an house depending on your map generation, but then you lose on the archer discount bonus. So for getting to the age 2 you would save between 64f and 32g, or 72f and 36g. It may not seem much, but consider that you also have cheaper archer on food in the next age.

Another world of advice regarding the first age (and the second too in this case). Venetians like every other civ get access to the barracks and spears in the age 1. In their case though, their spears are substituted by the arsenalotti, a tougher spear that also have a small anti heavy unit bonus. That makes them good counter to early MaA other than cav (and knights), especially because they cost less than a standard spear. But be careful, venetians spears cost food and gold, so it’s a good idea to keep 1 or 2 vills more on gold.

The arsenalotti also offer another benefit, which is that each vill can immediately transformed into an arsenalotto by paying the gold cost (30 gold). This allows you to delay the barrack, and to immediately have only the units that you need right away, but be careful. First, training arsenalotti this way cost you 5 more food (50f and then 30g compared to the original 45f and 30g), second, you will slow down your eco, since once changed, an arsenalotto cannot become a vill once more.

[RoDWolfpackXx]

I Like your Design. Thank you for your work <3

[AstronomerChris]

I used to live 45 minutes near Venezia would love to see this!

[AndyPXIII]

I hope one day we get civs with far more than four unique units and one unique building.