Venice can be tricky as hell

[Patgarret77]

Well... I never had such a beating before...

First off I concentrated on the mission to take Cremona... I knew Milan had Austria to back them so I tried to get some alliances. I tried Bohemia, Hungary and also France.... Unfortunately Ottomans declared war on me almost immediately and locked me in a 15 years war I could not exit whatever the terms of the peace.
So no-one wanted to ally with me.

So I kept an eye on Austria and when they got involved in some serious war stuff I made my move and took Cremona.
That was my only and last success.
Later, still in the otto war, I tried to snatch Gorz (I had a core on it) but this time the hell broke loose on me... Austria called on Spain, Aragon, Pope and some little italian state. I tried to engage them (while ottos was still shopping in my isles) but in the meantime my war exhaustion was skyrocketing and lollard heretics popped up in 4 different regions with 10k soldiers in each region.

That was the end of it.

I was a bit too hungry for action; that second core claiming (Gorz) was way wrong move... still I'm at a loss as for how to manage with Venice having the ottos immediately aggressive and Austria ready to jump on you if you take a move in Italy. Also I could not snatch an alliance (France would be perfect but they said no)... so I wonder what's the right recipe here...

 

[Baikal]

In my game I took Cremona when Austria lost the imperial title to Bohemia that gave me a nice buffer. That aside I never really had any aggression from the Ottos even when I incorporated Naxos (or however your vassal is called) and took Ragusa (if you look for an easy pick go for them). Though I don't really know if they have been occupied elsewhere. maybe I was just lucky.

 

[beckermt]

Heading east instead of west worked better in my experience. Austria is scary.

I grabbed fabricated on Ragusa, then Ancona, taking them both, then on Abruzzi, taking the entirety of Naples in 1 war. AE was a bit high at that point, so I thought I'd play it cool. Then I got 2 claims, Morea and Athens on the Ottomans, as well as already having a core on Albania...

Better gear up for another war. And then I had to go shopping... no saving is depressing.

 

[Montemurro]

I've had one reasonably successful game as Venice (released Croatia as a vassal then forced Hungary to give them their cores) and half a dozen games where I get pwned by either Austria or OE within a couple of years.

 

[NapoleonComple]

I usually try to grab Austria as an ally first.

 

[Montemurro]

I usually try to grab Austria as an ally first.

So do I, but they'll cancel that alliance at the drop of a hat if they get certain missions.

 

[Baikal]

I usually try to grab Austria as an ally first.

Didn't work for me. They always refused, right from the start. So I went for Bohemia and Hungary to discourage Austria to try anything funny with me. It became really fortunate with the Bohemian-Hungarian PU.

 

[Patgarret77]

Well I have to say, this fact that every country you play you find different situations, tasks, opportunities, enemies...in one word, a different contingency... is what really sell the game for me.
And that's also where this game is far superior than, say, Civ. In Civ few things are "relative good choices", while man are absolute...good things you always have to do or try to obtain. Here you have to re-invent the wheel every country you play, striking the perfect balance between tradeoffs of different kind (time, sides, priorities...).

In this particular area, EU4 is even superior to CK2 which I think is an incredible masterpiece for different reasons (basically the perfect match of rpg and strategy).

 

[DieRoteFahne]

In my opinion, as Venice you need your two diplomats to tell the Hapsburgs and the Osmanli how good, great, and kind they are ASAP, while trying to outnumber the ottoman navy with galleys or a few carracks. Poland, Bavaria and Spain are good allies. Naples or the Pope are good preys as they are out of the HRE.

Probably in my second game (it's better not to talk about the first xD) I got lucky since the Ottomans where busy fighting meaningless wars against the hordes and never DoW me. I was able to annex Ragusa, Naples and the Pope with ease. After that, all went nice until, unfortunately, the game ended.

 

[Arthasus]

I've found out that if you concentrate on trade and expanding your naval fleet (by going over force limit and rushing to naval idea which gives you +100% naval force limit) then ottos won't attack you
also after some time you might be able to ally poland and/or bohemia which will make austrians less eager to wage war against you

 

[Nemo Iudex]

Has anyone tried ignoring Italy altogether and really going East? I was thinking that historically Venice faltered because it never capitalised on the western trade routes (i.e. Portugal just went around Africa and circumvented Venice), after the fall of Constantinople and the Turks taking over eastern trade the writing was on the wall for Venice.

I noticed too that all the western trade routes (from the new world, and even the cape route) go to Antwerp and completely avoid Venice so clearly going West is out of the question.

So with that in mind I tried seizing a big strip of land from the Mamluks (at first Sinai, then Judea and Mecca for the prestige), and after coring Sinai I was able to send colonists east through that way. The demo ended at that point, but does anyone think that might work? It would be painful at first having to spend points coring and converting and avoiding over extension, but you could really capitalise on trade from the Indies and if you had a strong enough presence in the Gulf of Aden you could transfer all the trade up to Alexandria and away from the cape route favoured by Portugal.

 

[Heatth]

Has anyone tried ignoring Italy altogether and really going East? I was thinking that historically Venice faltered because it never capitalised on the western trade routes (i.e. Portugal just went around Africa and circumvented Venice), after the fall of Constantinople and the Turks taking over eastern trade the writing was on the wall for Venice.

I noticed too that all the western trade routes (from the new world, and even the cape route) go to Antwerp and completely avoid Venice so clearly going West is out of the question.

So with that in mind I tried seizing a big strip of land from the Mamluks (at first Sinai, then Judea and Mecca for the prestige), and after coring Sinai I was able to send colonists east through that way. The demo ended at that point, but does anyone think that might work? It would be painful at first having to spend points coring and converting and avoiding over extension, but you could really capitalise on trade from the Indies and if you had a strong enough presence in the Gulf of Aden you could transfer all the trade up to Alexandria and away from the cape route favoured by Portugal.

It might be a good try. But be prepared to have the Ottomans knocking your doors when they get their nasty "Annex Egypt" mission.

 

[Nemo Iudex]

It might be a good try. But be prepared to have the Ottomans knocking your doors when they get their nasty "Annex Egypt" mission.

That is a good point, I actually went and looked up the "Annex Egypt" mission which is below:

annex_egypt = {
   
    type = country

	category = MIL
	ai_mission = yes
	
	target_provinces = {
		owned_by = MAM
	}
    allow = {
        tag = TUR
        is_subject = no
		is_neighbor_of = MAM
		MAM = {
			owns = 361
			NOT = { alliance_with = ROOT }
			NOT = { war_with = ROOT }
			NOT = { is_subject_of = ROOT }
		}
    }
    abort = {
        OR = {
            is_subject = yes
			any_target_province = {
				NOT = { owned_by = ROOT }
				NOT = { owned_by = MAM }
			}
        }
    }
    success = {
        NOT = { exists = MAM }
		all_target_province = {
			owned_by = ROOT
		}
    }
    chance = {
        factor = 1000
        modifier = {
           factor = 5
           owns = 151
        }		
        modifier = {
            factor = 2
            NOT = { has_opinion = { who = MAM value = 100 } }
        }
        modifier = {
            factor = 2
            NOT = { has_opinion = { who = MAM value = 0 } }
        }
    }
    immediate = {
		every_target_province = {
			add_claim = ROOT
		}
    }
    abort_effect = {
		every_target_province = {
			remove_claim = ROOT
		}
    }
    effect = {
		add_prestige = 10
		add_army_tradition = 30
    }
}

I'm not an expert on the paradox coding language but interestingly it seems not to trigger if the Mamluks don't own Cairo. Mind you it would be a tall order to annex all that land before the Ottomans get a border with the Mamluks but even then, the mission only appears to give claims on territory actually held by the Mamluks so perhaps Venetian Siani would be ok? (apart from having a land border with a vastly enlarged Ottoman Empire...)

 

[Morgothic]

Venice is hard, but when I managed to beat the Ottomans, I sure did feel great!

And holding off the Austrians is a matter of diplomacy, not swords. If it comes to the latter, you may as well surrender.

 

[Heatth]

I'm not an expert on the paradox coding language but interestingly it seems not to trigger if the Mamluks don't own Cairo. Mind you it would be a tall order to annex all that land before the Ottomans get a border with the Mamluks but even then, the mission only appears to give claims on territory actually held by the Mamluks so perhaps Venetian Siani would be ok? (apart from having a land border with a vastly enlarged Ottoman Empire...)

They only get claim on Mamluk lands? This is somewhat disappointing. Their goal should be control the region, not to eliminate the Mamluks. That said, good luck with that land border with the Ottomans. Even without a claim they are likely to cause trouble.

Still, that does seems the best bet of Venice, I think. I do like this strategy.

And holding off the Austrians is a matter of diplomacy, not swords. If it comes to the latter, you may as well surrender.

Diplomacy did not help me. Once they get the "conquer North Italy" mission their opinion goes to hostile and there is little you can do to calm them. I really think they shouldn't get that mission so early in the timeframe.

 

[ShoGuL]

Venice is hard, but when I managed to beat the Ottomans, I sure did feel great!

And holding off the Austrians is a matter of diplomacy, not swords. If it comes to the latter, you may as well surrender.

I allied Bavaria and we beat up Austria easily enough Revenge is sweet!

Could have taken much more, but I didnt have enough diplomatic points and the beta was ending :3

 

[Morgothic]

Bah, my Bavarian allies (accompanied with some Swiss friends and Hungarian warriors) could not stop Austria. It destroyed us all.

 

[steehill]

This is my Venice then I'll tell you how I did it. I had all the provinces to form Italy in 1514 and formed it in 1517 (when much to my suprise the game ended as you obviously can't play as a non-venice country so no pic of that and no taking the whole of Italy for me - sad face)

I started by maxing out my army with cavalry and my navy with cogs. I put a claim on ancona and took it then took most of naples before moving north I next took the papal states and all the little north italian states before a big war against milan (two actually) to release genoa and corsica and take its other two provinces. before a final war to take lombardia

The tricks I learned
- As soon as the ottomans start making a claim on dalmatia, crete, corfu or cyprus (the claimed all of these one after another in my game) sell them to the highest bidder. In my game after I sold dalmatia (to hungary) the ottomans declared war on hungry and forced the release of croatia. I also sold corfu to the ottomans for 60coins and cyprus and crete to Rhodes for 20coins each. You can win a war against the ottmans if your navy is half decent. The way to do it is to block the ottomans access to corfu, crete or cyprus by placing your navy on the sea square to stop their access then ticking war score will win it for you (this obviously doesn't work for dalmatia which I highly recomend you sell to another country.

-An alliance can usually be gained from Spain, France, England or Austria from game start - this is important as it puts off most enenmies.

-If you are lucky the stupid HRE electors will elect a small state as emporer if that happens take italy to your hearts content as Austria prob won't join in

-If Austria is the emporer then a good tactic is to accumulate loads of aggressive points until the italian states form a coalition against you, then attack a non-hre state. This will put you at war with the HRE state such as Siena that you want to attack but stops Austria joining in (this tactic doesn't work in easy mode as coalitions don't seem to happen)

- you only have like 30 years to play so never waste your admin points only spend them on leveling up to 10 (you need it to form italy), and coring the 4 provinces you need to form italy. You can prob spend a few more coring some imperial teritories to stop Austria using an imperial reconquest cb on you.

-always always use fabricate claims before a war. Not only does this half your infamy it also makes coring cost a lost less (this is particularly important if you want to form italy before 1520)

 

[h0tSteel]

My strategy is to get an alliance with Castile asap (improve your relation first) which is in a union with Aragon.
Aragon is an excellent ally in the Mediterranean while Castile is a great ally against France or Austria in the Netherlands.
Beside that an alliance with Bavaria helps too.

With these Allies i managed to crush Austria and make them landlocked so they can't use their trade ships.

 

[Pryderi]

+1 to the Spain alliance, it's very strong. One thing I had success with was allying Austria and Bavaria and DOW'ing the Ottomans very early (before Austria gets into any wars or decides to take Italy, as Ottos attack Moldova), get access from Hungary and ferry across the Austrian/Bavarian troops if they don't have access. Even if you lose, the war can have a devastating impact on OE and Austrian troop levels and manpower. Austrian troops might leave if their rebellion kicks off, can peace out at that point if you're quick, maybe take Albania if the warscore is positive - otherwise stay in as long as possible.