Rise of Venice. All Discussions Screenshots Artwork Broadcasts Videos News Guides Reviews. Rise of Venice General Discussions Topic Details. This topic has been pinned, so it's probably important developer Oct 2, 2013 @ 8:20am Rise of Venice Manual / Handbook.
Acting as a sort of spiritual successor to the and series of business trading sims, Rise of Venice is a decent but uninspired slice of historical strategy. It's quite an accessible game thanks to the streamlined rules but this is also a big downside as for many genre fans, it's just going to be a bit too simple to be worth much attention.
In many ways, it's similar to other games of this type, being set in the glory days of Venice when it was just spreading its influence out into the world. The setup is very familiar, with all the usual requirements for building up the state by trading, entering into the political game, building up the population, engaging in warfare (with a distinct maritime flavor) with your enemies, and dealing with problems ranging from pirates to spies.
The main focus here is on the single-player campaign which acts as a tutorial to the basic rules but the long term appeal comes from the free play mode while there's also support for multiplayer matches. There's perhaps nothing ostensibly wrong with Rise of Venice but there's also nothing particularly special about it either. If you are looking for an easy to pick boardgame-style experience and have a leaning towards historical games, then you should have some fun here. The simplicity does work both for and against the game as it is very accessible but you soon find there is a slight lack of depth which does hurt the long term appeal. It is worth a go if this sort of thing is your bag, just don't expect to have your world rocked.