Because Venice is a deep red and located on the Italian peninsula, I LOVE reconquering Italy and recreating the Roman empire, at least in spirit. It's just so nice being able to start from scratch and build an empire again but in a more "meaty" period in history (at least in my opinion. It depends if you prefer high middle ages or classical Rome). And the Republic theme lends pretty well to the fantasy.

Couple of comments: - Venetian Heavy Infantry are absolute tanks, and they're one of the top 3 infantry units in the game (along with Spain and Portugal's Conquistadores and the Moors' Christian Guard). Their armour and shield allow them to form a relatively solid line, but you're better off having them charge their opponent, rather than absorbing a charge. - Men-at-arms and Broken Lances are solid and cheap, but they have low morale when compared to Feudal or Chivalric knights, which makes them weaker in prolonged combat with units they don't vastly outclass. The same applies to Venetian Heavy Infantry. To counter this, you want to either finish their engagements as soon as possible with effective flanking and/or use hammer and anvil strategies. Other alternatives are keeping a general nearby to rally them (simple enough, though the general could be used elsewhere) or bringing a Carroccio Standard with you (amazing spearmen, great boni. The downside is that it'll slow your armies down by a lot, as it's considered to be a piece or artillery). The Standard is nonetheless suggested, as Venice's reliance on militia units and non-knightly infantry makes morale a glaring weakness of theirs. - Stradiots are far, far better than their stats suggest. They're very lightly armoured, but their mounts are stupidly fast and they wield both lances and maces (good charge + armour penetration), making them superb at flanking and dealing with the more heavily armoured archers and crossbowmen of the later periods (e.g. Genoese Crossbowmen, Dismounted Dvors and Aventuriers). - Pavise Crossbowmen Militia aren't quite up there with their Genoese analogues, but their shields and armour still allow them to beat any archer/unshielded crossbow unit in a missile fight. They are also competent light infantry, so they're excellent when defending walls and useful when assaulting them (I wouldn't pit them against knights, but they'll make mincemeat out of peasant archers and spear militia). - The other Italian states are *_NOT_* your allies. The Pope can be handled as usual, by building churches, training priests, participating in crusades and through regular diplomacy. Milan, however, is famously treacherous: no matter how good your relationship with them is, they are bound to betray you sooner or later, so keep an eye on them and act accordingly. Sicily sometimes occupy themselves with North Africa, so they may leave you alone early on, but in my experience, they have a tendency to ally with either the Holy Roman Empire or the Byzantine Empire (or both), which leads them to attack you when you're occupied elsewhere.

My personal strategy is to buy Bologna from HRE on turn one. You can offer them alliance, map, trade rights and around 3500 gold. You’ll get 5 units of OP mercenary crossbow men with whom Milan could be easily defeated on turn 3. Get alliance with the Pope as well on turn 2 before attacking Milan so you can easily avoid excommunication. After defeating Milan you can decide which way to go first Sicily or Byzantines If you choose Sicily try to conquer Ajaccio region and give this island to the Pope, you’ll increase your influence on crusades and Sicily will attack the Pope in 99% of cases. So you can easily defeat them without fear of being excommunicated. After Sicily you can go for Constantinople to create Latin Empire and starting to unite former Roman Empire. Venice campaign is the most interesting of all imo cause you use 100% of the game mechanics instead of many other factions.

Ragusa is a modern day dubrovnik in croatia and comical fact at one point of history ragusa was the biggest trade power because they never went to war.

In my playthroughs, the Italian city-state factions were the easiest to build a steamroller with because of their militia units. You can convert every settlement into a city for economic benefits and then get cheap armored spear militia, long-ranged armored crossbowmen (which do armor-piercing damage) and militia cavalry, which are not great heavy cavalry but are among the cheapest and lowest upkeep in the game. As either Milan or Venice, once you control the northern Italian peninsula you can have a dense core of cities (Milan, Genoa, Venice, Florence, Bologna) that can essentially churn out a full stack every turn, and has the economic output to allow you to do so. Because of this, and good late-game naval units and fun gunpowder units (monster ribault anyone?) these were easily my favorite factions. It *could* be seen as historically inaccurate to essentially turn the capitals of the Italian Renaissance into the Zerg, but if you're winning, who cares!

I'm trying to rebuild the Roman Empire as Venice lol. Just a few tips: 1: I allied myself with Hungary very early in the game (like the first 6 rounds or something) they make great allies as they can act as a buffer between you and the Mongols or other northern factions. Not to mention that they were exceptionally loyal to me, so much so that when Budapest came under siege by the HRE I actually bothered to send two armies to reinforce the Hungarians, the Fools never stood a chance against us. 2: conquer as much of the Mediterranean as you possibly can! Venice can thrive off of trade and at least in my experience makes funding large armies relatively easy. Also the island Ajjacio (probably spelled that wrong) and the one under are also great trade assets. (Watch out for Milan tho) 3: Eradicate the Byzantines. Unless you plan on establishing friendly terms with them I'd recommend recruiting an army and using Venice's naval prowess to land them. I'd recommend this pretty early on So they don't have time to expand or make friends. 4: Venice has a great navy. Upgrade your naval units as quickly as you can. Doing so will make defense of holdouts like Iraklion and Rhodes that much easier, not to mention Venice's convenient location means your navy can land troops almost anywhere.

Once I secure northern Italy as Venice I usually like to try and recreate historical armies via mercenaries. I like to follow the composition of the late 15th century Venetian alliance against invading France in particular their strategic victory/tactical failure against the French at Fornovo:) X1 General center rear X1 broken lance with General in rear X2 Stratioti cavalry on one flank X2 militia cavalry opposite flank stratioti X1 condotori cav as reserve X2 pike militia center (stack and lock them together for great results) X3 spear militia placed at center 1 either side of pikes arrayed in blocks, 1 rear X2 pike mercenary (same plan as pike militia) X1 Venetian infantry in reserve center X1 Arquebus arrayed as skirmishers X1 hand gun also skirmishers X1 crossbow Pavise last skirmisher X2 artillery (mix of your choice the less uniform the better, although field arty is more of a post Fornovo addition) Ideally you would want to have some form of archaic checker board formed with each block. Or go with the 3 armies approach. Also have your cav closer to your skirmishers for quick support. This is a semi accurate composition that I had a lot of fun with:) the more mercenaries the better!

Stradiots are actually broken in game as due to a bug they're the most powerful cavalry unit Eg. Not dying to pikes in a Headon charge.

I'm sure someone already mentioned it, but you can actually recruit the base Italian Militia from your walls after the palisade ones, no town watch building required. This is pretty fantastic. They're not amazing troops, but they're head and shoulders above the town militia, spear militia, and levy spearmen the non-Italian European factions can recruit, and on par with the sergeant spearmen most other European factions can recruit, only being weaker in their lack of bonus vs cav and inability to form a schiltron. They're still good for getting decent early game armies up cheaply, so you can swarm the rebel settlements before your enemies have the chance to. Obviously rush the building for Italian Spear Militia, bc they're only slightly worse than Armored Sergeants with 1 less defense, but 80 florins cheaper to recruit, and 30 florins lower upkeep, and actually the same upkeep as regular Italian Militia, though a bit more expensive to recruit. They're also able to be recruited WAY earlier, so you don't have to worry about hiring mercenary spearmen to get a beefier front line.

I agree with taking Zagreb, Durazzo and Rhodes as soon as possible, but why not try and take Florence, Ajaccio on the island of Corsica and Cagliari on the island of Sardinia, which will make you a Mediterranean naval superpower Florence will give you access to Sardinia and Corsica, which will give you access to Tunis, which will give you access to Timbuktu

Venice seems like the most well rounded faction in this game. At least that has been my experience.

Small thing, you’ve got the high and late periods mixed up the high period is the in between of the early and late periods, best example of this is that armored swordsmen are high period while the arquebusiers are late period, but you get the swordsmen way before the gunmen

I usually go straight for milan, and make an alliance with the pope

Stradiots are the best Calvary in the game if you micro correctly. The fast moving lets them charge and disengage. Many multiplayer players wont play if your bring strats.

Probably one of my favourite campaigns.

There is one excellent use for peasants in Rome total war but I don’t know how well it works in medieval: wherever you disband peasants, they add to that regions population, which means you can shuffle around peasants and affect the economy, regional growth, religious preferences, and even overload a bunch of your peasants into an economy that can’t support it and cause civil disorder

actually dismounted men at arms sucks, I was playing as Milan and they collapse quickly against dismounted feudal knights since they have lower morale, the stats looks promising but not on battlefield All the Italian faction heavily rely on their spear militia, and their Flag buff from the wagon

Crossbowmen of Venice & Milan were famous for fighting in ''snow'' in the alps to the west, north & east that surround the Po valley. The advantage of a crossbow unlike a bow is once loaded it is ready to volley which in uneven natural fortress like terrain works to great effect. A bow unlike a crossbow requires the chest as in muscle & breath to notch then release being tiring enough in optimal conditions much less in multiple feet of snow sapping your stamina not to mention strength. Javelin & crossbows are far more suited to highly mountainous terrain not found in England or France with flat plains & marshland for the most part. The mountainous Iberian region rarely used archers in the grand scheme favouring light cavalry for the most part. A nation generally fights to it's environment with the exception of France using heavy cavalry in marshes of damn places as they wanted to emulate the Burgundians, Polish & select states of the HRE. Personally I am not found of cavalry though if they are to be used I say you go all or few for the Mongolians had around 4 horses to each light archer & heavy lancer. England in contrast had only 10% of it's forces be mounted for scouting & messaging if that. England had heavy cavalry on the Island but was not abundant & not practical to take to continental Europe hence why Britain relied heavily on pikes, bills, spear & most of all the long bow in conjunction with cannons when they became a thing as you can put them in a gun ports by cutting a few holes above the water line in a sea vessel. Britain was made for piracy hence the 1st permanent navy was formed from pirates in the 1500's mainly from Cornwall, Bristol & London. I consider Mongolia & England a great historical comparison of how an infantry or in contrast all cavalry army is done. For all the strengths & mobility of cavalry take them off the plains of mainly eastern Europe-northern Asia they become a burden rather then a advantage.

Ah memories I remember playing this game in Highschool I had ni idea how to win battles so I always used auto resolve😂😂😂

I love playing as the Venicians even more than the Heilige Romanishe Reich (Holy Roman Empire). Probably because I live near Venice itself. There could be a conflict of Intrests but still... Venezia regina dei mari

at turn 20 you should have pavise corssbows

I immediately allied with the other Italian states and HRE and Poland then attacked Hungary and wiped them out before they became too strong. I've now driven the Byzantines out of europe and taken constantinople and that will be the extent of my Eastern expansion for now. Its a good position for Venice to be in early game I think.

The Doge wannabees (in other words, those who select Venice 😀) need to brace themselves and get ready for a complicated, demanding and very open campaign. I always find it quite arduous to make ends meet for the first century of play, keeping an eye on the frayed borders the Most Serene Republic has and the necessary troops to keep them sufficiently protected. As any Venician player knows, it's just a matter of time before he ends up slugging it out with the Milanese and Byzantines; not to mention the Imperial bully boys, who tend to swarm down with the foolish idea of besieging no less than Venice itself. However, one of the most fascinating and complex factions, to me. Good video, of course, but that's the standard!

great video!!!!! keep up the good work 😊😊😊😊😊

Spending like 20 seconds on stradiots that are literally best unit in entire game. Cool

How many times have i heard you say peasants are bad and i dont use Fog of war to cheat 😂😂😂 i can hear the anger each time u repeat urself lol

Please do Napoleonic Total War

Show us who would win rome units or medieval units

why did they chose not to allow naval battles u can only resolve it

3 minutes in and it’s over 50 lip smacks like why do that

the lowest effort video i’ve ever seen

He doesn't know that high is after early lmao What is he doing here making guides if he doesn't know such basics

You do way too much lip smacking it’s nasty

So disgusting

I saw a screenshot where someone replaced the starting Doge portrait with the Doge dog. Venetian Doge coin.

Skipped the Venetian cross for crusades?