Venice is normally a minor country not playable in the Grand Campaign. A little tweak in a file and the Doge can play with the majors…
Venice has 8 provinces in Northern Italy, the Dalmatian coast, plus Corfu, Crete and Cyprus. A powerful navy, some good admirals. Very few generals and armies not so good (and expensive). The Venetian COT is one of the richest, and therefore very competitive.
The strategy is to make powerful alliances because Venice has not so friendly neighbours (Austria, wishing to discover a strange thing called ‘sea’, and Turkey, well you know the trick, expansionist infidels…). Keep the lead in the Ventian COT. Try to get some trading posts/colonies when possible. The aim is more to survive than anything else.
I will not write a detailed timeline here. Just some major achievements. The alliances of Venice will change (overtime, Hansa and Teutonic Order, England, Mameluks and Irak will be allies). An aggressive diplomatic activity tries at least to conclude royal marriage with lots of neighbours to prevent them to go to war. Royal marriage with Austria is a must, but when it expires and cannot be reconducted, it is not long before Austria start marching towards Venice.
Alliances on the other hands brings you into your allies’ wars and sometimes against powerful enemies.
From 1492 to 1620, Venice was directly declared war at on six times. The Italian minors, all allied together, were responsible for four (Papacy twice, Genoa once, Savoie once), Austria once and Turkey once.
Hopefully, Royal marriages with some Italian minors always prevented some members of this alliance to go to war against me. The Venetian navy was nearly always successful to fend off the enemies’ navies. On the other hand, the land war was extremely long and costly, inasmuch as Venice had no leaders. The chance I had was that when the Italian declared war the first time, I had been saving all I could for a few years to build an expensive fine arts academy in Venice. My treasure was full and all the money went into men, horses and cannons (too bad for paintings and nice stuffs). The first war (lasted 5 years, rebellions were appearing always more often and Venice was nearly bankrupt at the end) showed the annexation of two papal provinces and of Savoie. The second, initiated by Rome, very costly, ended with Venice annexing Rome and Tuscany. The last one initiated by Genoa with Portugal was hardly won but allowed the annexation of Genoa. Portugal, although controlling one of my provinces and besieging another one finally sued for a white peace... Most of the time, I was hopefully helped by my allies. However, wars for Venice are terribly costly and long periods of peace are needed to rebuild some strengths.
War declared by Austria was lost and Venice had to pay 250 gold (loan needed to pay) to Austria. They declared war soon after an Italian war and I had only a 6k army against over 50k Austrian.
War declared by Turkey was also lost and Venice lost a province (Albania) previously gained.
I was drawn to war by my allies several times. The trick is to honour the alliance and then do nothing, waiting for peace to come. Unfortunately, enemy armies often come sooner. One of this war (Turkey declared war on my Mameluk allies). Turkey engaged all its armies in Africa and Middle East, leaving Europe undefended. I could besiege and capture four provinces and was offered three (Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia) for peace by Turkey.
Albania, as a muslim province kept revolting (zero tolerance towards Sunnis doesn’t help) but after some bloody sieges to retake the city, the population dropped under 5000 and I was able to send catholic missionaries to convert the province to the One true faith… Just to be recaptured by Turkey a few years after.
During the wars, the Venetian navy fought honourably and this allowed me to steal the maps of foreign countries, giving me some access to new countries (with no explorers and no conquistadors, Venice cannot explore terra incognita before reaching fairly advanced land/naval technology levels, what is still not the case). The maps I got showed a path through the Atlantic to the Antilles, the northern half of the west African coast, the Red Sea and the western coast of India. Africa was not the centre of the colonial interest of other European powers. Only two provinces held trade posts. The Venetian settlers (I got one per year) began sailing past Gibraltar and along the coast. In time, I had 8 trading posts (two of level six in provinces producing ivory) and even one colony in Nigeria. Without conquistadors, the chance of establishing a trade post are not very high, especially when natives are present. The chances for establishing a colony are even lower. Fortunately (?) it seems that some Europeans before me had rampaged these provinces and only one still had natives. With an average 60% chance of creating a trade post, West Africa was Venetian after 20 years of continuous efforts.
Note that African provinces are not very hospitable and colonies cannot survive without a constant flux of colonists. So trade posts are a better solution. However, trade posts cannot supply armies nor navies. That’s why I decided to create just one colony in Nigeria. A navy there can fight pirates and will be the spearhead of future expeditions when my naval tech level will allow me to explore with all navies. Finally, during the wars Venice had to fight, nobody attacked these colonial provinces. Either my enemies were not aware of their existence or they did not represent an interesting enough target.
What next? Well, try to go on this good path. Venice is second in terms of victory points (but far away behind Spain). I’ll try to develop the overseas possessions and if inevitable wars occurs, try to take the best of them (and find a way to protect myself against a powerful Austria, which has Hungary as a vassal).
Venice has 8 provinces in Northern Italy, the Dalmatian coast, plus Corfu, Crete and Cyprus. A powerful navy, some good admirals. Very few generals and armies not so good (and expensive). The Venetian COT is one of the richest, and therefore very competitive.
The strategy is to make powerful alliances because Venice has not so friendly neighbours (Austria, wishing to discover a strange thing called ‘sea’, and Turkey, well you know the trick, expansionist infidels…). Keep the lead in the Ventian COT. Try to get some trading posts/colonies when possible. The aim is more to survive than anything else.
I will not write a detailed timeline here. Just some major achievements. The alliances of Venice will change (overtime, Hansa and Teutonic Order, England, Mameluks and Irak will be allies). An aggressive diplomatic activity tries at least to conclude royal marriage with lots of neighbours to prevent them to go to war. Royal marriage with Austria is a must, but when it expires and cannot be reconducted, it is not long before Austria start marching towards Venice.
Alliances on the other hands brings you into your allies’ wars and sometimes against powerful enemies.
From 1492 to 1620, Venice was directly declared war at on six times. The Italian minors, all allied together, were responsible for four (Papacy twice, Genoa once, Savoie once), Austria once and Turkey once.
Hopefully, Royal marriages with some Italian minors always prevented some members of this alliance to go to war against me. The Venetian navy was nearly always successful to fend off the enemies’ navies. On the other hand, the land war was extremely long and costly, inasmuch as Venice had no leaders. The chance I had was that when the Italian declared war the first time, I had been saving all I could for a few years to build an expensive fine arts academy in Venice. My treasure was full and all the money went into men, horses and cannons (too bad for paintings and nice stuffs). The first war (lasted 5 years, rebellions were appearing always more often and Venice was nearly bankrupt at the end) showed the annexation of two papal provinces and of Savoie. The second, initiated by Rome, very costly, ended with Venice annexing Rome and Tuscany. The last one initiated by Genoa with Portugal was hardly won but allowed the annexation of Genoa. Portugal, although controlling one of my provinces and besieging another one finally sued for a white peace... Most of the time, I was hopefully helped by my allies. However, wars for Venice are terribly costly and long periods of peace are needed to rebuild some strengths.
War declared by Austria was lost and Venice had to pay 250 gold (loan needed to pay) to Austria. They declared war soon after an Italian war and I had only a 6k army against over 50k Austrian.
War declared by Turkey was also lost and Venice lost a province (Albania) previously gained.
I was drawn to war by my allies several times. The trick is to honour the alliance and then do nothing, waiting for peace to come. Unfortunately, enemy armies often come sooner. One of this war (Turkey declared war on my Mameluk allies). Turkey engaged all its armies in Africa and Middle East, leaving Europe undefended. I could besiege and capture four provinces and was offered three (Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia) for peace by Turkey.
Albania, as a muslim province kept revolting (zero tolerance towards Sunnis doesn’t help) but after some bloody sieges to retake the city, the population dropped under 5000 and I was able to send catholic missionaries to convert the province to the One true faith… Just to be recaptured by Turkey a few years after.
During the wars, the Venetian navy fought honourably and this allowed me to steal the maps of foreign countries, giving me some access to new countries (with no explorers and no conquistadors, Venice cannot explore terra incognita before reaching fairly advanced land/naval technology levels, what is still not the case). The maps I got showed a path through the Atlantic to the Antilles, the northern half of the west African coast, the Red Sea and the western coast of India. Africa was not the centre of the colonial interest of other European powers. Only two provinces held trade posts. The Venetian settlers (I got one per year) began sailing past Gibraltar and along the coast. In time, I had 8 trading posts (two of level six in provinces producing ivory) and even one colony in Nigeria. Without conquistadors, the chance of establishing a trade post are not very high, especially when natives are present. The chances for establishing a colony are even lower. Fortunately (?) it seems that some Europeans before me had rampaged these provinces and only one still had natives. With an average 60% chance of creating a trade post, West Africa was Venetian after 20 years of continuous efforts.
Note that African provinces are not very hospitable and colonies cannot survive without a constant flux of colonists. So trade posts are a better solution. However, trade posts cannot supply armies nor navies. That’s why I decided to create just one colony in Nigeria. A navy there can fight pirates and will be the spearhead of future expeditions when my naval tech level will allow me to explore with all navies. Finally, during the wars Venice had to fight, nobody attacked these colonial provinces. Either my enemies were not aware of their existence or they did not represent an interesting enough target.
What next? Well, try to go on this good path. Venice is second in terms of victory points (but far away behind Spain). I’ll try to develop the overseas possessions and if inevitable wars occurs, try to take the best of them (and find a way to protect myself against a powerful Austria, which has Hungary as a vassal).