I've played one game until the end as Venice and one for about 200 years or soo until i resigned because Austria went into a personal Union with France
. Heres what I learnt.
- HRE Is your most hated foe, they will always ask for their land back.... Do yourself a favour and as soon as you start remove all territory that belongs to them. They will hate you for it but oh well they hate you an ways.
- Easy 1st target is the Ragusa, Croatia areas
- You should get some missions, to take most of the gerneral areas.
- Pick Naval Ideas first Venice is on an island and if they cannot beat your navy they cannot take your capital which can drag most wars into stalemates.
- Use your navy to conquer Cyprus when you get that mission, just make shure your navy surpasses Mamalukes, then they cannot touch you.
- Build a tone of Trade ships, a TON. Use them to fight if need be. Grab some galleys to they will be particulary usefull especial as Venice in the Mediteranian.
- What I did was ally with Hungary because they create a natural border to most of your rich lands. If the Ottomans cannot beat your navy they cannot win the war.
- Try and get rid of those 2 Vassals you have they are taking away from your diplomatic relations ALLIANCES!, You already have cores there if they separate by chance, maybe by rebelions perfect declare war and take them.
- Join a Collation against the Ottomans if their power hasn't receded, beat them till their bloody.
- If your rebulic tradition drops below 1 you will switch to a monarchy, should you hate the republic system. They will also be a decision to switch back if you like.
- A good thing to know about they election system is to save up close to 100 tradition and wait until a young person is elected, younger than 40. They younger the more times you will be able to re-elect for +1 to all stats. When your tradtion drops to around 30 you will get many event popups for -1 stability and +10 tradition, or the other wat around and you become a kingdom. save up admin points so you can spend them to inrease sability when these events hit you.
I hope these pointers give you a hand I had restarted my Venice games many many times to learn all these tricks. I really Enjoy republics just a bit sad merchant republics can't switch government types.
Cheers