It could work, the thing is though, I don’t think that a republic like this is really deserving of the highest priority as far as DLCs go. It might be nice at some point, but there are a number of civs that should really take higher priority.
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Agreed. It’s super fun to theorycraft civs and doing so helps people really dig into the development rules, theories, and decisions. I would submit that one of those development rules is that they are looking to cast wide nets with civs and cover the globe fairly briskly. I hope we don’t see another European civ until perhaps 4 or 8 more civs are made. There’s still giant swaths of civilization and massive empires totally overlooked. And even then the Venetians would be a dark horse in the race to be the next European civ selected. Again, no disrespect at all for all of these great ideas and passions. Civ design is the best part of this franchise to me, and I see anyone so interested as my friend. 
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Well, of course there is room and material with more than that, but I didn’t want to overdo it…
Anyway, the UU are technically 4, but 2 are simply unique line upgrades locked behind a landmark.
If you are interested, I’ll make a post with all the discarded ideas, so there is more material to work with, and it could be useful for other civs designs.
I don’t think that the form of government of a civ should really impact its introduction in the game, but I agree that there are civs that should take priority.
Mmm yes and no… I mean, for sure there are civ, European and not that their absence impact more. Like the byzantine for example (just the first that comes to mind…) but I wouldn’t underestimate the Republic of Venice importance either.
I mean, along with the other 4 maritime republics they made the crusades possible, the venetians took Constantinople more than 200 years before the fall at the ottomans hands, it fought France and the HRE in the Italian wars, and in general it was an hub were several civilizations encountered.
Again, there are civs that should and will take priority, but I’m not that knowledgeable in their history to help design them, so I help were I can.
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I disagree with the first part of your quote. A couple of factions already in the game would have not made the cut then, if massive empires were a must for the faction. Obviously they are going for market sales.
Which ones do you think are overlooked, that fit the timeframe of course.
Byzantium is overrated. It was already a declining Empire during the game time frame. Come at me Bros 
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New UU: DOCTORS
The doctors is an healer unit. It heal twice as fast than a monks, and they can be trained at both the TCs and monasteries since the second age. It’s affected by piety like a monk.
Cost: 200 gold
At the start, the doctor is a pure healing unit, but with upgrades (researched at TCs and monasteries) it can get other abilities. Those techs are available at both the TC and monastery.
Age 1:
UT: Lazzaretti
They can build an UB called lazzaretti. Those buildings heals more units at the same time in an area when doctors are garrisonsed inside. More doctors are garrisoned inside and bigger the healing area becomes (with zero doctors, the area is small circle of about 3 tiles radius). The healing speed is constant, and a eighth of the doctor standard speed (so a fourth of a monk). It’s affected by herbal medicine even if it doesn’t need to have units garrisoned.
Cost: 100 wood
Cost UT: 50 food and 50 wood
Age 2
UT: Poisons
After this UT, the doctors gain the ability to poison enemy buildings, it takes 10 seconds where the doctor has to stay put adjacent to the building and when it’s vulnerable (a bit like a aoe2 monk converting a building). A poisoned building train units with that already lost 15% of their heath, vills deposits 15% less resources to it and it deals 15% less damage.
When a building has been poisoned, it automatically starts a countdown of 100 seconds, at the end of it, the building is healed. This countdown though is sospended every time that a unit or a tech is queued, so basically the countdown proceed only when the building is idle, to simulate a quarantine (as it’ll be called from now on). Buildings that are poisoned can’t akso heal units inside.
Cost UT: 150 food and 200 gold
Age 3
UT: Plague
After this UT, the poison effect can be spread through nearby buildings if the building isn’t put into quarantine. Every 10 seconds that the building isn’t put on quarantine, the poison effect is spread to buildings near 1 tile, after 20 seconds, buildings through 2 tiles, and so on (max 10 tiles). We will call this area the contagion area. Then all other buildings have to be treated like a poisoned buildings, but they don’t spread the contagious further (like the original building).
Cost UT: 400 food and 400 gold
Requires poison UT
Now I know that all those effects seem to be OP, but keep in mind 2 things:
- Both the doctors and its poison UTs are expensive. The doctor also isn’t a strong unit (so it’s not impossible to snipe it), and it have a long reload time (5 minutes) for the poison ability.
- Almost all those negative effects can be avoided if the building is left idle for 100 seconds. This is the fastest way to have the building healed and ready again, so as soon as your building is poisoned you should clear the queue or at least avoid to add more units or techs. You can also delete the building and build a new one to be sure that the poison effect doesn’t spread.
The lazzaretto of Venice, one of the first methodic quarantine systems.
OP will be adjourned as soon as possible.
NOTE: all numbers and percentages are indicative in order to explain the concept of how it would work.
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.
Big thanks to @Siegelad4112 that with its profile picture has indirectly suggested the idea for this UU.
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Wow, that’s actually a pretty unique idea. The upgrades could be named after herbs that grew in the area as well. Nice job!
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Big thanks to @Siegelad4112 that with its profile picture has indirectly suggested the idea for this UU.
heh it’s a pfp from the AoE3DE Halloween event 
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Thanks.
Your suggestion too is actually really good. In fact, the Republic of Venice was the first that commanded the building of the most ancient botanical garden in the world, under the university of Padua (a city controlled by Venice) for this very reason.
Maybe there could be a UT called like this that make doctors and lazzaretti heals i even faster.
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I know, but this morning I saw it and from that moment onwards the idea struck me like a lightning.
So thanks again.
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That’s some out of the box thinking. Awesome.
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Thanks a lot. I don’t know how but I simply had the inspiration this morning, and through the day I designed it (don’t tell it to my boss at work 
).
I’m still thinking of more UTs for the doctor, especially I want one for the age 4.
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Very strongly agree. This is an interesting, welcome effort. So is the Portuguese, a worthy candidate. Wider concepts could be considered too. Keep it up guys! 
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I’m still thinking of more UTs for the doctors, since just 3 aren’t enough in my opinion. I would like to add one for the age 4.
I thought of one for the age 4 that also have enemy units near poisoned buildings lose health up to 50% max, or an upgrade that allows doctors to heals with areas, but both seemed too strong…
For example, originally the doctors had this upgrade in the age 4 that all buildings with the plague would make enemy units near it losing health, like 1 HP every 2 seconds, until they had 50% of their health. I removed it since I thought that it was too strong for pushes in post imp, with the defenders health halved, and defensive buildings that dealt 15% less damage.
Another idea was that an upgrade that would make doctors mobile lazzaretti, that instead of healing 1 units at the time, they had an aura that heals all units at the same time. That too was too strong, especially combined with the Targonieri ability to tank damage directed to other units.
Any suggestion is appreciated for the unit.
Also, some small changes:
- doctors now takes just 10 seconds to poison a building (instead of 30).
- doctors are affected by piety like a monk, and lazzaretti are affected by herbal medicine.
- OP and history post adjourned with the new UU and UB.
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You are doing a HUGE work, I hope devs listen to your ideas. Well structured, historical accurate and new gameplay mechanics.
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You worked out the last bonus for the Doctor?
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I didn’t had much time this weekend unfortunately, and I’m still not sure about what do do with it.
On one side, I’m not sure that keeping buffing the poison effect is a good thing, it might appear as too OP.
On the other side, buffing the healing doesn’t seem that useful, since they already heal pretty fast.
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I love the idea of a sabotage unit! Closest thing we have is the cavalry attack reduction of Abbasid camel archers. This game really should have some CC and various “spells” which could change the outcome of a battle. I still think they should replace the shatter effect of English trebs with a diseased cow which causes damage over time against units caught in the radius.
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Mmm a bit dark, but that tactic was actually used during sieges, so maybe a smaller nod is enough.
Like, buildings targeted by trebs train units slower in a radius. Like, are you targeting the French castle with a bunch a production buildings around it, then all those buildings work slower.
But we are getting out of topic now…
Thank you. The doctor is first a support unit, since it’s able to cure units way faster during combat, but it can also be a good sabotage unit. The problem is that I would like to give them a more UTs, but I’m undecided on what effect add to it.
I mean, I don’t want to overshadow everything else of the venetians, but I feel like they lack a role in imp.
Maybe an UT that allows for lazzaretti to slowly repair near buildings too… I don’t know…
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I apologize for being not that much active here on the topic in the last week, unfortunately I was busy with the new work, and that literally drained the energies out of me.
Overall, I think that the civ is quite unique. That doesn’t mean that changes have stopped, I still have some ideas for UTs, bonuses and effects, but I lack the time to think about them in depth.
I’ll try to gather the ideas and post the new changes within the end of the weekend that it’s coming. I’ll try to keep the series of “how to play the venetians” by adding the second age, although that takes a long time to write, so I make no promises.
Thank anyway for all the people who has been following me until now, keep checking this topic and you’ll see something new pretty soon.
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NEW UNIQUE TRADE MECHANIC
The venetians have unique trade mechanics, and that starts with an unique ability of their scout.
- Venetians scouts can trade with newly discovered neutral trade posts
Basically, how this works is that when your scout discover a new trade posts, he can interact with it, and it gather a sum of gold equal to what a merchant would gather with the distance between the trade post and your starting TC. The action can be repeated, but from the second time onwards the scouts will get only 20% of the first trip. A new scout can get the full effect once more on every trade post, so this is basically a way of trading food for gold in the super early game.
To balance that, the venetians doesn’t have access to professional scouts tech, so they can’t hunt animals with their scouts.
NOTE: The scout doesn’t trade automatically with the TC, only when you have a market the scout trade automatically with it.
- Venetians don’t have access to trade ships. Instead, all ships are considered trade ships, and each generate a specific amount of gold, compared with a standard TS.
- Fishing ship - 30% of a TS
- Transport ship - 40%
- Galley - 75%
- Galeass - 300%
New UTs available at the market:
Age 2
-
Silk road - Traders can be assigned to scouts on trade routes, a bit like the sheeps follow the scouts in the age 1. Traders assigned to the scout, will move 30% faster and have +2/2 armor. Each scout can get a maximum of 5 traders.
The same thing happens on water, where a maximum of 5 trade ships can be assigned to a patrona (nor of that on a later post).
cost: 300 food 250 gold
NOTE: It’s enaugh to assign a scout/patrona on a trade post for traders/trade ships available to follow it when they are near. The scout/transport ship of course slow down to the speed of the buffed trader/trade ships.
-
Mude - Traders wood cost removed, but gold cost increased by 25 gold (100 gold total).
cost: 300 food and 200 gold
Age 3
-
Golden bill - Cut the buy/sell fee in half.
cost: 250 food and 400 gold
Age 4
-
Insurances - when a merchant or a merchant ships is killed, you get back it’s original cost in gold and all the gold that the merchant was carrying in that moment (so for merchants is 75g + 75w transformed into gold for a total of 150g, for merchant ships is 100g + 300w transformed into gold).
cost: 800 gold
NOTE: This new mechanic and UTs replace the old UTs effects and the bonus of fixed prices at the market.
Description
So, venetians were expert traders, this shouldn’t be a shock to anyone, so a unique trade mechanic is suited.
I took inspiration for the mechanic from the voyage of Marco Polo, that traveled with his familiars to China, and opening the doors for new economic opportunities with his city. In truth, Marco Polo was hardly the first amo in the venetians to go through such voyages, but still, this was a the norm for the venetians patricians, that often traveled to open new trade routes, or bargain favorable prices.
Marco Polo, this appearance could be used for the skin of the venetian scout too.
The mude instead were regular periodical trade routes financed and commanded the Republic itself, and not by private citizens.
The golden bill instead was the really convinient agreement struck with the emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire after the help of defeating the normans. This bill, contained several edicts that were really advantageous for the venetians (more than for the byzantines).
What do you think of this mechanic? Do you like it? Do you think that it’s balanced? Would you make some changes?
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