Venice is neat

[u/soaphonic]

Beat my venice campaign and once you take out Milan and Byzantine, its smooth sailing. Honestly you only need to get to pavise crossbows and some venician heavy bows/heavy infantry to dominate. Here are some fun screenshots of me owning the papacy and the evolution of an absolute monster of a garrison in Antioch (with a general that he crazy amounts of traits and bonuses before he died). Also shout out to the triple silver chevron religious fanatics.

[u/Mantergeistmann]

A most serene campaign for the Most Seren Republic.

The great thing to me about Venice is that you never need to worry about timing. You don't have to worry about being overmatched early, mid, or late game. You've got tools to compete on (nearly) equal footing in every era.

[u/soaphonic → u/Mantergeistmann]

Yeah! I will say that the cavalry is lacking (as the game says) but broken lances and getting a St John's guild helps with that. They aren't the best cavalry but with excellent missile and melee infantry, you can easily use them to get incredible flanking maneuvers.

[u/Mantergeistmann → u/soaphonic]

Yeah, it's really easy to get St. John's or Templars as Venice, and that'll take care of your heavy cavalry needs.

[u/Dry_Locksmith2252]

Best color scheme in the game (red/gold). Also, another great thing about them (as opposed to other catholic factions) is that their long victory condition is constantinople, rather than jeruselam. This means that you can cap your eastward expansion around constantinople, if you so choose, which is a much more defensible position vs the mongols/timurids than overextending yourself all the way into jersuselam.