Played Venice and got Roflstomped

[fingalum]

I just did a really interesting game as Venice, I was able to survive and grow in the 28 years of the demo. My first step was to sell Corfu to the ottoman (got 80 ducats), what it provide is by selling Corfu they are Overextended so they tend not to DOW you really fast giving time to gain powerful ally.

Now the other problem, Austria. I allied at the very beginning with them and Bavaria saving me from being attacked for a decent duration. In the meantime, I sent a diplomat to Castille to forge a durable alliance. Austria being dishonorable as they are broke the alliance and started to fabricate claim on Treviso but luckily for me I was able to gain the alliance from the recently formed Spain. From that moment I knew I was safe from attack but still could not be offensive myself.

I noticed that the Mamluk where on a war with Tripoli draining their manpower so I decided to Fabricate claim on Dumyat. The war was fairly easy I got Dumyat, Gaza and Sinai in the peace deal giving me a port on the Red sea which could have been useful on a longer game. During the war I noticed that Poland had freed up a diplomatic relation and they had Hungary or Austria (can't remember) as a rival. So naturally I allied myself with them giving me 2 really good allies in Spain and Poland-Lithuania.

During my war with the Mamluk, Austria was stuck in two wars, one against France, one against England and Portugal draining their Manpower. So I declared war on Milan knowing that Austria would enter the war but they were too weak to pose a threat (especially with Poland-Lithuania and Spain on my side).

At the very end, Austria was so weak its own vassal Salzburg DOW them and I won a trade war on Bohemia-Hungary with the help of the newly established Commonwealth. As a result I had a great trade power in the Wien node and lots of light ship on the other sea node making Venice a rightful master of the Trade.

 

[InnocentIII]

I just did a really interesting game as Venice, I was able to survive and grow in the 28 years of the demo. My first step was to sell Corfu to the ottoman (got 80 ducats), what it provide is by selling Corfu they are Overextended so they tend not to DOW you really fast giving time to gain powerful ally.

Wow, that's very interesting and it has many implications (until it gets fixed). I'd really like to make a mod with Albania survivable, making as few alterations as possible. Turkish truce and/or overextension would be a pretty easy way to do that. Of course, I need to not suck first.

On the OP's experience, and my own, I'm beginning to think all those people saying the game was too easy because Peter Ebbesen did very well as Byzantium had a point. Not the one they were making, of course. But if I watch highlights of a soccer game and run around saying "the game's no good because they score five times a minute", I think we can fairly draw a conclusion.

 

[Pryderi]

Rivals makes a big difference, but sometimes Austria just hates you from the start. Last try I got an alliance with Austria and Bavaria, took Ragusa straight away and called them to war. That seemed to encourage them to call me to war (Austria had been in constant war since I started fabricating claim, but didn't call for aid). Then I just stayed in a war on Austrias side while improving relations. Got to +200 and kept it there. Hungary broke fee and offered an alliance. The Ottomans started a war vs Muscovy and 1/2 the steppes, their troop numbers plummeted down to 30k.

I DOW'd them for Albania and the peninsula. Austria joined, even though it was in 2 wars, Bavaria joined and sent 12k men. Hungary dishonoured the alliance, Insulted me and set me as rival >.<

I ended up losing Really should have won though, I wasn't expecting our troops to move at such different speeds and wasn't able to back up the Bavarian stack fast enough. Damn Hungary had so many troops as well, we could have fragmented the Ottomans with their help.

 

[Pukovnik]

I was quite unlucky in my game with Venice. I got overrun by the Ottoman and Austrian hordes of infinite troops, but hey at least I managed to gain some lands in Italy and Balkans before being overruned like Poland in WW2.

 

[TheUltimateSheepz]

Found out the hard way that Austria valued its imperial alliance with Milan more than its military alliance with me. Got rolled.

 

[SomethingSharp]

I don't think the "strength" of the alliance if there is such a thing is the problem. It's just that if things are like they were in EU3, countries will always get the defensive call to arms first, and won't even consider the offensive one unless it rejects the defensive one first.

An easy trick is to answer a call to arms from Austria so you're in the same war as they are, then they won't be able to answer Milan's call when you attack. Good way to expand in the HRE if you can get an alliance with the emperor.

 

[mightypirate]

I had a similar experience as the OP. I was trying my hardest to gain alliances and not aggravate any of my menacing neighbors. I had alliances with Austria, Poland, Switzerland, and Bavaria. I had also improved relations quite a bit with Naples and Milan. The game was going great. I fabricated and gained the county of Ragusa and the Ottomans never attacked me. Not knowing game mechanics that well I decided to take a mission to vassalize Ferrara (I think that's right). Anyway, I declared war and several nations quickly came to their aide. One of them being Austria, who was my ally at the time. Does any nation within the HRE automatically gain Imperial protection in war no matter what the alliances or relations are? If so, it must be a suicide mission to try and DoW on any HRE nation. I haven't really played much EUIII so I'm unfamiliar with how the mechanics work there either.

edit

Found out the hard way that Austria valued its imperial alliance with Milan more than its military alliance with me. Got rolled.

Yeah, exactly! Despite myself having higher relations with Austira than Ferrara did, they still chose to support their imperial "vassal." I'm thinking it has something to do with the fact that Venice is not in the HRE. There has to be some kind of modifier there.

 

[Pryderi]

I think it's only the Emperor that gets called in automatically, any others that join are from alliances. That's just from observation though, may not be correct.

 

[Rey]

Just ended my third Venice game. I almost got all of Italy while getting zero wars with the Ottos. I proceed in a similar fashion to my previous game, only more aggressive and I got similar results.

Right at the game allied with Bavaria, to keep Austria at bay, and improved relations with the Ottomans. I decided to focus my expansion only in Italy, therefore I went first after the Italians outside the HRE. Used one of the diplomats to fabricate a claim on Abruzzi (Naples). I built some 5-6 divisions and moved the whole army to Urbino (after I asked for military access) using transports. Then I dow'ed Naples and occupied all their provinces - they were really no match for my army, had some 4-5 divisions max - annexed them.

While doing this I got some messages reporting that the Ottomans were trying to claim Dalmatia, so after ending my wars I sold it to Hungary to avoid trouble. They got involved in wars and never bothered me again for the rest of the game, while I occasionaly improved relations with them.

After coring some provinces and killing rebs, dow'ed the Pope for Rome (again using claim fabrication) and beated him and his allies - not hard really - I took Rome, Mantua and annexed Urbino. I started to core Mantua right away, it's inside the HRE! But the Emperor heard that I was being a badboy and I got dow'ed by Austria after some months - punitive war. It came in a bad time, I was having trouble with rebels popping up everywhere, got some events that lowered my stability and I was running out of money to keep my troops+mercs. So, after losing a couple of battles I decided to give up and sued for peace in exchange for releasing the Byzantine Empire . Curfu+Crete were worth some 50 score points, anyway they kept revolting a lot because their religion and Greek culture, so meh.

Some years to pacify the country and rebuild the army. Then I went after the rest of Italy, annexed the pope (Romagna) and Ferrara, two provinces in Toscana, and a little bit of Switzerland. This time the Austrians were allied to the Pope and answered the call but I was better prepared (mercenaries since my manpower was completely drain) and kicked them back. They were involved in other wars, so that surely helped.

 

[underlordgc]

An easy trick is to answer a call to arms from Austria so you're in the same war as they are, then they won't be able to answer Milan's call when you attack. Good way to expand in the HRE if you can get an alliance with the emperor.

That exploit has been fixed, you can no longer declare war on an HRE state if you are allied in a war with the Emporer